The topic Firefox 153 is finally ditching the Nvidia driver workaround Linux users have hated is currently the subject of lively discussion — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies’ decisions and competitors’ reactions can quickly change the picture.
As much as I love to tout Linux as the way forward for computing, I do have to admit that it’s not perfect. Sometimes, the tech to do what you want just isn’t there yet, and you have to rely on workarounds. for example, people using Firefox on Linux with an Nvidia GPU had to rely on the nvidia-vaapi-driver to get the job done. Now, Firefox is finally adding Vulkan rendering, thus removing the need for the workaround.
As spotted by Phoronix, the Firefox team has just squashed a really annoying bug. Beforehand, if you wanted to use GPU acceleration on Firefox, you needed a workaround driver to get the job done. Fortunately, those days are soon over, as the team has closed Bug 2021722 on Bugzilla, titled “Add Vulkan Video path to FFmpegVideoDecoder in Firefox.” At the time of writing, the status of the bug is marked “Resolved Fixed,” which can only mean good things for people with Nvidia GPUs.
So, when can we expect this change to actually land on our systems? Well, if nothing terrible goes wrong (and I don’t see why anything would), we should see this update drop as part of Firefox 153. That releases on July 21st, so it’s not too long a wait. For the time being, keep using your workaround drivers and gritting your teeth; the end is almost here.