Graphics hardware vendor Nvidia has taken a major step to keep pace with the evolving world of Linux with the announcement that the Nvidia 364.12 Linux driver will support the new-age open source graphics systems Wayland and Mir. Wayland, which began as a community project, and Canonical's Mir are modern-day alternatives to the X Window System that has traditionally run on most Linux computers. Wayland, in particular, has taken on much momentum in the past two years, and many believe we are already reaching a situation in which support for Wayland is a necessary condition for supporting Linux. Mir still in development with Canonical and will eventually be the on-board graphics system for Ubuntu.   

The 364.12 driver adds a Wayland platform library, as well as EGL extensions and other components. The new driver will also support the Vulkan 1.0 open standard graphics API.

Nvidia has come under fire in the past for not investing in Linux support and was even the subject of a much-publicized middle-finger salute from Linus Torvalds at a Q&A session in Finland in 2012. Since Linus's epic rant, the company has made significant efforts to improve Linux support. The new Wayland and Mir enhancements will help to make Nvidia a viable option for Linux gamers and power users.