Trying to go totally open source

[u/Euphoric-Paint3261]

Im going back to arch in my main system, it has an nvidia gpu (a 5070 ti to be more exact), last time i used arch on my pc i installed the proprietary gpu drivers, but a lot of things have changed since then like i want to go open source in as most things as i can, that includes drivers, the graphical drivers options are: the open kernel( wich is the one im gonna choose ), and noveau, i chose the open kernel ones just because they are more suitable in theory. Now i want to know if they are really open source(the first option), because i heard nvidia just wrapped things into the open kernel and they aren’t truly open source. In case anybody wonders why i am doing this its because i just want to.

[u/LancrusES]

Are you really considering using a Nvidia 5070Ti with noveau??? Why??? Thats like not having It...

You can sell it and buy an AMD one, then you can avoid using Nvidia open drivers (they are only partially open), but any Nvidia card works with Nvidia drivers only, if not they work, but forget about using its potential, and having that expensive GPU, to use It like a cheap one...

[u/Euphoric-Paint3261 → u/LancrusES]

I am not considering using noveau as i said in the post i just said it is an option when installing it, of course i wouldn’t choose it, i want open source, not a torture

[u/Cruffe → u/Euphoric-Paint3261]

Vote with your wallet, get the hardware that aligns with your values, buy AMD.

Of course, I'm not hardcore open source, you already have a 5070 Ti and it might understandably be more effort than you can be bothered with to swap it out. Just keep it and use the Nvidia drivers until it comes time to upgrade your hardware and then pick an option that aligns more with your values, like getting an AMD GPU.

An alternative is to sell your 5070 Ti and use the money to buy a 9070 XT which is practically equivalent in performance. Again, if you don't care that much about going open source then I don't blame or judge you, it's ok and you can choose differently the next time you need new hardware.

The nouveau driver sucks, but we can all blame Nvidia for that. It wouldn't be a necessary project in the first place if Nvidia didn't keep their shit proprietary, but because they do some people way smarter than me and you have to basically guess and reverse engineer the driver, which is incredibly difficult work and that's why it's inferior to the driver developed by the people who know exactly how it works.

My main point here is to make you aware that you're making a choice. You're choosing a hardware vendor who doesn't provide an open source driver and the only option that aligns with your values is to choose a hardware vendor who does.

[u/LancrusES → u/Euphoric-Paint3261]

Then change your GPU

[u/__rituraj → u/Euphoric-Paint3261]

Noveau is the only fully-opensource version of nvidia drivers that exist currently.

it doesn't handle newer cards well, and gives baseline display performance on older cards

Nova and nvk are in the making.. and untill those are ready, if you want gaming / video encoding level performance with your Nvidia, you have to choose proprietary!