Nvidia Driver naming: confused

[Rashkae]

On 04/05/2012 08:57 AM, Leo Noordhuizen wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have hold back asking the following question but it am very curious about
> it.
>
> I am running UBUNTU 11.10 with a Nvidia based graphics card.
> Over the past time (years ?) I have seen discussions about the nv and
> 'nouveau' drivers.
>
> However when I open 'additional drivers' from System Settings I get 2
> choices which seem identical:
>
>     - NVIDIA Accelerated Graphics Driver [recommended]
>     and
>     - NVIDIA Accelerated Graphics Driver [post-release updates]
>
> The descriptions with these drivers are identical...
>
> Which driver is this ? NV ? Nouveau ?
> Both ? One of them and the second with the latest bug-fixes ?

Neither.  NV and Nouveau are the Open Source drivers and are already 
included with the default install of your system.  (which one is 
installed and you are using will depend on which version of Ubuntu you 
have installed and how your hardware was detected.  I have no current 
info on  how this determination is made.)

The drivers form "Additional Drivers" however, are the binary, 
proprietary drivers released by Nvidia.