See Nouveau in action on Ubuntu 10.04 (plus how to help test it!)

By , Published March 17, 2010

Ubuntu 10.04 will ship with a new open-source Nvidia driver called Nouveau.

Whilst only providing 2D support the driver allows Nvidia users to take advantage of several new features within Ubuntu 10.04 such as the new Plymouth boot screen and ‘KMS’, a feature that: -

…shifts responsibility for selecting and setting up the graphics mode from X.org to the kernel. When X.org is started, it then detects and uses the mode without any further mode changes. This promises to make booting faster, more graphical, and less flickery. ~ https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/KernelModeSetting

Whilst the Nouveau driver to be included in Lucid cannot support desktop effects (Compiz) it can support Metacity Compositing. A version of Nouveau that does pack 3D support is currently available but remains somewhat malnourished in comparison to the binary blob available from Nvidia.

For people wanting/expecting a flawless 3D super-desktop I’d heartily recommend sticking with the closed-source Nvidia driver.

Nouveau in action

David Nielsen, who’s fast becoming a regular contributor around these parts now, has provided us with a video showing how well Nouveau works in Ubuntu 10.04 as part of his response to the Ubuntu X testing team’s call for Nouveau testing and bug hunting.

Testing Nouveau in Ubuntu 10.04

The Nouveau should be used by default in systems with Nvidia hardware.

If you have since installed the proprietary driver and would like to switch back to using Nouveau to test it then simply disable it via the Hardware Drivers menu, reboot (you may see a lovely low-graphics mode, so be warned) and then enable the Nouveau driver.

Feedback

Head over to wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Testing/NouveauEvaluation to see the teams 10 steps for testing Nouveau and how to offer your feedback.

Thanks to David

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  • http://twitter.com/Ferrantonovsky Fot Angúnia

    Any person know if this driver work fine with nVidia Geforce 8400M GS?

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      There’s a chart with what works, what doesn’t @ https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Testing/NouveauEvaluation with 8400 GS listed

      • http://twitter.com/Ferrantonovsky Fot Angúnia

        Thx, you’re really fast hehe! I have a lot of problems with the privative driver of this nVidia. I hope that works best with free driver

    • Mohan

      I was going to ask the same thing since I have a similar card, but it’s on the list. Suspend unfortunately doesn’t work…oh well.

    • lolren

      its working but not taht good. i have it now.:( sometimes i even think it has crippled 2d worse tahn nv driver:(

  • http://getopenid.com/snostorm Dieki

    I haven’t had that entry in Hardware drivers since the -15 kernel. With -16 it just disappeared. Is this expected?

    • Anonymous

      Same.

  • Anonymous

    this driver is clearly inferior to nvidia’s so whats the point of putting it into ubuntu? when new users install ubuntu they will have this new driver installed by default and it will sour their experience with the os when they can’t do 3d things such as compiz and etc.

    • http://orkutcidio.deliriocoletivo.org Peterson Espaçoporto

      “So whats the point (…)?”

      The point is this driver is free.

    • https://launchpad.net/~davidnielsen David Nielsen

      We cannot distribute the nvidia driver by default. In addition to this it has wider hardware support than the -nv driver we currently default to as well as a wider feature set. Already the 2D driver does accelerated XV and the 3D acceleration as is shown in my video already works provided you opt-into xorg-edgers. The performance might not peak as high as the proprietary driver but it is remarkably smoother on the desktop.

      • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

        I’m going to try the xorg-edgers later and see how it handles. I’ve read a few of your forum posts that are particularly praise-worthy (in respect of how relatively young Nouveau is) so i’m pretty stoked to try it.

    • Anonymous

      currently ubuntu already comes with a non 3d driver as default. so applaud yourself, nobody is losing anything. instead we’re gaining.

      this is much much much better then the driver we previously had, and its free. double benefits.

    • erik

      not on my laptop. nouveau 2d runs circles around nvidia’s blob. you want 3d, install a second ubu just for games.and run the binary blob until the fantastic team behind the free os 3d is ready

    • erik

      not on my laptop. nouveau 2d runs circles around nvidia’s blob. you want 3d, install a second ubu just for games.and run the binary blob until the fantastic team behind the free os 3d is ready

  • https://launchpad.net/~davidnielsen David Nielsen

    I really wish d00d would spell my name correctly :)

    Aside that the nouveau video it should be mentioned is made using the highly unsupported xorg-edgers ppa which should only be enabled if you are willing to accept the risks.. That being said, it just runs and is stable for me.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      Whoops sorry. I’m always try to be -really- cautious when typing it out as well, but i revert to British on auto-pilot.

      If i do it again I’ll deprive myself of Banshee for a week ;)

      • https://launchpad.net/~davidnielsen David Nielsen

        There is no need for any extreme actions such as depriving oneself of Banshee goodness.

  • http://aaronfournier.50webs.com/ Aaron Fournier

    I just want to be sure about something, if I use Nvidia’s closed-source drivers, will I not be able to see the new Plymouth boot screen?

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      Come final release you *should* be able to. There is a module that allows this (which still doesn’t currently work in the alphas) but if all goes to plan yes you’ll see it :)

      • http://aaronfournier.50webs.com/ Aaron Fournier

        Okay, that’s good. Thanks! :)

  • Anonymous

    Tried uninstalling then restarting but didn’t have the Nouv drivers as an option in Jockey. I can’t seem to get the original drivers to load either, D:

    • http://sensehofstede.nl/ Sense Hofstede

      That’s probably because Nouveau isn’t a closed driver and therefore doesn’t show up in Hardware Manager. I’m not sure why the author thought the nVidia Riva/TNT/GeForce entry was the Nouveau driver, especially since the Nouveau developers stated that they won’t support Riva 128: “Note : there is no NV03 (riva 128 family) support, neither in progress, nor planned. NV03 differs too much from the other chips to be added to a unified driver. A separate driver for NV01/NV03 would probably be the way to go.”

      The Nouveau driver works just like the old ‘nv’ driver: when you’ve installed it — which it should be by default — it can be used by the system if it chooses to.

      • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

        I did think it was a bit odd but, not feeling entirely confident about the best way to use/re-enable Nouveau, I looked for some other guides to see what the “de facto” method was… That’ll teach me for paying attention to forum posts!

        • Anonymous

          It was strange that I couldn’t get my nvidia driver to activate after I deactivated it. It was installed but wouldn’t activate.

  • James Jones

    Got Lucid Alpha 3; I presume I got the nouveau driver, because it gave the very nice startup screen. One thing I noticed that it did that nv doesn’t: I had the graphics card connected via HDMI. Like the proprietary driver, it overscanned–I couldn’t see the panels when I logged in. Unlike the proprietary driver, it didn’t have an overscan slider to compensate that I could see. Is there a way to adjust for overscan with nouveau?

  • Anonymous

    Wow. That looks really nice. I had no idea that 3D was even close to working.

  • http://mastropino.deviantart.com/ MastroPino

    omg… I hope that they don’t want to give us the same problems that gave to ati user… bah

  • http://twitter.com/zwaldowski Zachary Waldowski

    Sadly, I can’t get Nouveau working with EFI boot at all (Linux won’t even boot), which is my now-preferred (well, I’m stuck with it) method of dual-booting Ubuntu on my MacBook Pro… I’m sad without Plymouth…

  • Erik

    i can verify the nouveau driver for 2d is awesome. it is definately faster than nvidias binary. im running ubu 10.04 on an hp g60 445dx dual core amd with nvidia graphics card. i was skeptical at first but the speed is so impressive, im using the default theme with metacity and the few effects as a showcase. this should really help push those on the fence to try ubu10.04. ive helped 7 people convert from windows to ubu 9.1 and no one has had any complaints. the oldest being 68 years young.

  • Erik

    i can verify the nouveau driver for 2d is awesome. it is definately faster than nvidias binary. im running ubu 10.04 on an hp g60 445dx dual core amd with nvidia graphics card. i was skeptical at first but the speed is so impressive, im using the default theme with metacity and the few effects as a showcase. this should really help push those on the fence to try ubu10.04. ive helped 7 people convert from windows to ubu 9.1 and no one has had any complaints. the oldest being 68 years young.

 
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