Andrew M.A. Cater composed on 2022-08-04 10:20 (UTC):
...
nouveau is a good and supported way forward.
NouveauS are.
It's deleterious to omit the fact that there are two separate functionality FOSS
Nouveaus, one of which, the Nouveau X display driver (DDX: Device Dependent X), is
reverse-engineered
old technology
non-functional, absent the other being loaded
optional (as in not needed, except for seriously ancient GPUs, mainly AGP)
The other is the kernel's Nouveau device driver, which provides KMS functionality
that the DDX, and the newer technology DIX (Device Independent X: Modesetting;
upstream default), and Mesa, depend on.
Given the kernel will load its Nouveau module automatically when an NVidia GPU is
present (and the Nouveau module is not blocked from loading), and the conceptual
superiority of the DIX over the DDX, it's probably better to mention Nouveau only
as the inferior option when discussing DIX suitability to task.