On Linux, can I get 3D acceleration with a Nvidia card w/o X?

Question

I like Linux.

I like OpenGL.

I don't like X.

On Linux, is there anyway to get 3D acceleration from my Nvidia card without X? Ideally, I'd have the kernel boot, get to a console, then somehow get into a "graphics mode", where my entire monitor is just a single OpenGL screen ... and I draw stuff to it with OpenGL. Without X. Is this possible?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Well it should be possible to use the framebuffer with hardware acceleration, see here.

Answer 2

From everything I can find it looks like OpenGL needs X.

• OpenGL supported implementations include
  • X Window System for *nix
  • GLX on Linux (OpenGL and GLX and the X server integration of GLX, are Linux system components)
• Mesa 3D and Direct Rendering Infrastructure
  • The Direct Rendering Infrastructure is a framework for allowing direct access to graphics hardware under the X Window System

Answer 3

Nvidia's binary driver only works with X. You can, however, run a headless X server. See the section on "UseDisplayDevice" "none" in the README:

ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/190.36/README/appendix-b.html#UseDisplayDevice

I believe the future Gallium + nouveau stack will work sans X, but it's still under heavy development now.

Answer 4

Wikipedia has a section on Competitors to X.

Among them, a possible match for what you want is DirectFB, but it says that "The Direct Rendering Infrastructure [which is in X] ... may make these efforts redundant"

Unless you plan on writing your own operating system and then writing the applications on top of it, I would recommend sticking with X. It's been developed and used for decades, and I'm pretty sure there isn't any good replacement for it out there.