Nvidia driver modeset kernel module

As part of the latest Nvidia driver update at version 352.09, there is now code supporting a new nvidia-modeset kernel module that should be running on a system and that interfaces with the usual nvidia kernel module.

Evidence of this is in the kernel module sources and in the nvidia-modprobe command code that is hosted in Github.

From the nv-modeset-interface.h header in the kernel module “sources”:

/*
 * This file defines the interface between the nvidia.ko and
 * nvidia-modeset.ko Linux kernel modules.
 *
 * A minor device file from nvidia.ko's pool is dedicated to
 * nvidia-modeset.ko.  nvidia-modeset.ko registers with nvidia.ko by
 * calling nvidia_register_module() and providing its file operation
 * callback functions.
 *
 * Later, nvidia-modeset.ko calls nvidia.ko's nvidia_get_rm_ops()
 * function to get the RMAPI function pointers which it will need.
 */

Let’s hope that modesetting support in the driver is near and we will not have to wait additional years for it. Also, let’s hope that the firmware images required for the latest hardware on Nouveau will be released soon, without further delays.

As soon as it will be delivered, I will implement it in the packages according to the driver table in the repository page.