There’s exciting news for Haiku, the open-source operating system inspired by BeOS! NVIDIA is making strides in graphics support for Haiku, which is sure to delight developers and users alike.
Last year, NVIDIA’s open-source kernel modules were adapted for Haiku. These modules were originally designed for Linux but are now also being used to enhance graphics support on Haiku. The team is working on adapting the Mesa NVK Vulkan driver, aiming to improve performance further.
As of late 2025, the NVIDIA-Haiku v0.0.1 driver packages are available. This package combines NVIDIA’s open-source kernel modules—different from the Nouveau driver—with the NVK Vulkan driver and Mesa’s Zink driver for OpenGL over Vulkan. However, this version is still in its early stages, so users shouldn’t expect full stability yet.
Right now, these drivers only support Turing GPUs and newer models. This limitation stems from the need for the NVIDIA GPU System Processor (GSP), which only works with recent hardware.
Developer X512, who has been spearheading this initiative, shared some screenshots showcasing successful NVIDIA graphics functioning on a RISC-V SiFive HiFive Unmatched developer board. This progress is pretty promising for future developments in Haiku.
For those interested in digging deeper, you can check out the NVIDIA-Haiku driver sources on GitHub or follow discussions on Haiku-OS.org.
This project is a part of a larger trend in tech where open-source software is gaining traction. Developers are increasingly prioritizing interoperability and community-driven solutions. The work being done for Haiku showcases this shift, making advanced graphics more accessible to users who prefer open-source platforms.
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