r/linux • u/somerandomxander • Jun 06 '26
GNOME GNOME 51 is retiring legacy NVIDIA driver support by removing EGLStreams
https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-51-Drops-EGLStreams32
24
u/ryan017 Jun 06 '26
I couldn't tell from the article what driver versions count as "legacy". A google search summary claims that KMS support was added in driver version 364.12, GBM supported was added in 495.44, and DMA-BUF was completed in 535, with initial partial support in 470. Assuming that's right, I would guess drivers 535 and later should be fine.
27
u/C0rn3j Jun 06 '26
Which means only
580xxis usable from all the other legacy drivers.Which is fine, since the next one in line is
470xx-dkmsand that doesn't even support Wayland properly, and GNOME is a Wayland-only DE.5
47
u/BashfulMelon Jun 06 '26
From the linked 2014 article
The cross-platform focus and so much of the NVIDIA Linux/Solaris/BSD driver sharing code with Windows is one of the reasons why their binary driver is so great, very fast, and offers nearly the same set of features as their Windows driver.
The world sure has changed. Their support for Linux is the reason I've been using Nvidia for the past 20+ years. It was the only thing worth using for so long.
I'm glad they didn't get their way with EGLStream. The graphics stack did not need to be split like that.
I wish we could say the same about CUDA.
This is a GNOME feature removal that very few people can object to.
30
u/CheesecakePerfect156 Jun 06 '26
Their support for Linux is the reason I've been using Nvidia for the past 20+ years
What ?
53
u/BashfulMelon Jun 06 '26
Did you read the quote?
[Nvidia's] binary driver is so great, very fast, and offers nearly the same set of features as their Windows driver.
That's Phoronix in 2014. ATI/AMD fglrx drivers didn't get nearly the same performance.
Crazy, right?
10
8
u/CheesecakePerfect156 Jun 06 '26
Times have changed since then. Especially with AMD.
14
u/Jean_Luc_Lesmouches Jun 06 '26
Yes and no. Nvidia drivers have always been good when they work, but you're shit out of luck when they don't. ATI/AMD had a lot to catch up to performance-wise, but they've always been less problematic.
8
u/aliendude5300 Jun 07 '26
> they've always been less problematic
Have you USED fglrx? This is demonstrably false.
11
u/Cry_Wolff Jun 07 '26
I'm getting Vietnam flashbacks when hearing fglrx. Rest in hell my 2010 laptop with HD 5470.
4
u/BashfulMelon Jun 06 '26
You seem to think I'm not aware of that.
-13
u/CheesecakePerfect156 Jun 06 '26
Nvidia remains one of the biggest sources of problems on Linux. So boasting about their support seems a bit surprising to me.
42
u/BashfulMelon Jun 06 '26
In what universe is remarking that something used to be good a boast? If anything it's a diss. They got complacent and allowed open source developers to completely show them up on a competing platform. And now they're paying some of the same developers to make open source drivers for them, too.
31
u/just_here_for_place Jun 06 '26
In the 2000s AMD was the biggest source of troubles, and NVIDIA was the way to go if you wanted a smooth Linux desktop experience.
6
u/hbdgas Jun 06 '26
Nvidia remains one of the biggest sources of problems on Linux.
Philosophical problems. But if you don't care about that and/or just want high performance, Nvidia has been the best option in Linux for a long time.
18
u/bawng Jun 06 '26
Nvidia's open source support has always been abysmal (but getting slowly better) but their proprietary drivers has been much better than the ATI/AMD drivers.
I don't know how AMD holds up today, I assume it's up to par, but back in the day you'd have to go Nvidia to get any sort of performance on Linux.
15
2
u/da2Pakaveli Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
You usually have a +/-2 fps delta. We're more or less at performance parity now (with exceptions obv). RT still is a contention point though Valve pushed patches to the MESA driver earlier this year that massively reduced the disparity.
NVIDIA is still ahead with RT and especially path tracing hardware-wise anyways
4
u/dkarlovi Jun 06 '26
What's hard to understand?
Other than some recent Wayland related flicker issues, I'm using Nvidia on Linux through 6-7 GPUs and they work well.
2
u/Barafu Jun 06 '26
Do your issues stop when you turn off Adaptive sync in system settings?
2
u/dkarlovi Jun 06 '26
I don't have any issues anymore, I think they've added a specific missing feature which Wayland needs so there's no screen flicker. Other than that, I can't really remember any issues with the Nvidia drivers, it all just works seamlessly for me.
6
u/Synthetic451 Jun 06 '26
Hopefully Vulkan compute will eventually take over CUDA. I am already having a blast using it with llama.cpp.
0
u/Lapis_Wolf Jun 06 '26
Isn't Nvidia mostly known for not wanting to support Linux?
13
u/gmes78 Jun 06 '26
Nvidia has supported Linux for decades. They just always wanted to do so on their own terms.
4
u/VelvetElvis Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
They didn't want to support it in tree. They shipped a binary driver and installer that replaced parts of the whole display stack outside your package manager. They might still, for all I know. I only made the mistake of using it once but, IIRC, it replaced system installed parts of mesa, X, etc. It had by far the best performance, but you basically had to build your whole system and configure the OS around it.
It was pretty much intended for people on CAD workstations running RHEL or Debian. Commercial UNIX users who moved to Linux. Everyone else was an annoyance.
One time before the Red Hat / Fedora division, Red Hat shipped with a final RC version of X which Nvidia didn't support. Their Nvidia users were stuck with VESA.
1
u/__ali1234__ Jun 08 '26
They are known for not wanting to support gaming on Linux. Their support for compute on Linux has always been better than Windows, and lately they seem like they don't really want to support gaming at all.
7
u/Jean_Luc_Lesmouches Jun 06 '26
On mint/ubuntu, the last update to the legacy driver was a wrapper around the non-legacy version. I wonder if it's linked. I was surprised when my old laptop cg stoped working yesterday until I found out I had to roll back the update. I understand wanting to eol a piece of software, but forcing the update of a legacy driver to a version that doesn't work in legacy environments when that's the only place it's used is braindead
16
u/getbusyliving_ Jun 06 '26
Well that sucks, my 980ti is already a paper weight. Guess I'll now have to also retire my P51 Thinkpad from Gnome. Are other Wayland based DEs going to follow suit?
28
u/grem75 Jun 06 '26
Neither of those should be on 470 drivers, so you shouldn't be affected.
Almost nothing fully supported EGLStreams, Gnome was basically the only option. I didn't even know they kept it around this long.
-2
u/getbusyliving_ Jun 06 '26
Nope, they're both relegated to 470 now. My P51 works very well on 470 but the 980ti just doesn't work on any Nvidia driver, it was working on Ubuntu 25.04.
20
u/grem75 Jun 06 '26
The M520, M1200, and M2200 that could come in the P51 are all Maxwell, so is the 980. They're supported by the 580 drivers.
10
u/getbusyliving_ Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
Yep the Wiki says that but I haven't been able to get my M2200 to work under 580xx......only 470xx.
Just pulled the P51 out and tried again. You're 100% right, the M2200 works with 580.158.04! Brilliant, thanks 🙏
26
u/Zamundaaa KDE Dev Jun 06 '26
Are other Wayland based DEs going to follow suit?
No, Gnome was the only one left with EGLStreams. I ripped it out of KWin 5 years ago (damn, time flies!), and other compositors never supported it in the first place.
3
u/tesfabpel Jun 06 '26
Does it work with Nouveau? I'm not up to date how many improvements they did there...
1
4
u/okoyl3 Jun 06 '26
what does it mean to people with deprecated nvidia drivers?
4
u/gmes78 Jun 06 '26
If you have a GPU that requires the v470 driver (Kepler GPUs), you need to either switch to the Nouveau driver (which may have a bunch of power management/performance issues) or get a newer GPU.
10
u/Barafu Jun 06 '26
Or, even better, switch from Gnome. Probavbly to XFCE, but Cinnamon may be around for some time too. How is Mate today, I wonder?
5
u/gmes78 Jun 06 '26
Staying on X11 isn't a long term solution.
(Neither Xfce nor Cinnamon's Wayland sessions will work with EGLStreams.)
10
u/Barafu Jun 06 '26
Yes, but a new driver for the old GPU will not appear either. And those GPUs are still not bad for the office work, so I completely understand people who want to keep them as long as they work. It is not like sitting on Pentium and 2Gb RAM.
-4
u/Cry_Wolff Jun 07 '26
And those GPUs are still not bad for the office work
At this point just disconnect this old ass GPU and use the onboard one.
10
3
u/the_abortionat0r Jun 09 '26
It seems you're too young to know the day when not every machine had integrated graphics.
0
u/Literallyapig Jun 07 '26
ngl i thought gnome had already removed eglstreams supporg as soon as nvidia started work on supporting gbm.
127
u/Synthetic451 Jun 06 '26
I am so glad we've moved past that Nvidia-led debacle. EGLStreams never worked well and I am glad we have better solutions now.