Using an Nvidia graphics card on a Linux system involves making a choice between a unified, proprietary kernel driver supported by Nvidia itself, or the open-source nouveau driver for users of legacy cards or those wishing to have a pure, untainted open-source operating system and kernel.
“Nvidia is releasing public documentation on certain aspects of our GPUs, with the intent to address areas that impact the out-of-the-box usability of Nvidia GPUs with Nouveau,” wrote Nvidia’s Andy Ritger on the nouveau mailing list.