Welcome to 
This portal explains how graphics cards and their respective driver works on Debian. There are links to the various wiki pages for most common GPU manufacturers.
Debian supports free and open-source drivers for most graphics cards out-of-the-box. However, some cards may have better compatibility and performance with non-free (proprietary) firmware and/or drivers.
To identify your graphics card model, either visit hardware identification page, or use lspci.
Once you have identified the model, you can find more information from one of the pages below.
Contents
Linux GPU driver stack
GPU drivers in linux usually consist of a 3-layer 'driver' stack
- Userspace tools/APIs
- Kernel driver
- Firmware module
Common GPU manufacturers
AMD (and ATI)
AMD cards support open source drivers since Graphics Core Next 1.0 (ie. HD 7000 series) from 2012 onwards
- Userspace: Mesa - included in the Debian repos
- Kernel: amdgpu - included in the repo
Firmware: firmware-amd-graphics - included in the non-free-firmware repo
Non-free-firmware is included by default (unless opted out) since Debian 12/Bookworm.
Wayland support is enabled by default if your WM/DE supports it.
There is also the non-free/proprietary amdgpu pro userspace drivers - but for most people, this is not required as mesa is better.
For older cards, you may need to use the non-free kernel driver.
Intel
Intel GPUs have support open source drivers for a long time, unless you have very old hardware (eg. GMA 500)
- Userspace: Mesa - included in the Debian repos
- Kernel: i915 (or Xe) - included in the repo
Firmware: firmware-intel-graphics - included in the non-free-firmware repo
Non-free-firmware is included by default (unless opted out) since Debian 12/Bookworm.
Wayland support is enabled by default if your WM/DE supports it.
i915 is the default kernel driver for most Intel GPUs. For newer cards supporting the Xe architecture (eg. 11th Gen+, Iris Xe or Arc Graphics), there is the (experimental) Xe driver that can be enabled with modprobe options.
If your graphic card was manufactured in 2007 or later, try uninstalling the xserver-xorg-video-intel package and use the builtin modesetting driver (xserver-xorg-core) instead.
For older devices: xserver-xorg-video-intel
nVidia
There are 2 options with nVidia graphics cards: nouveau (free) or proprietary
Nouveau (free) driver
Nouveau is the open source (reverse-engineered) drivers. At present this provides reasonable 2D graphics, but 3D graphics acceleration is still suboptimal.
Nouveau is installed by default on Debian.
nVidia Proprietary (non-free) driver
The nVidia proprietary driver is included in the contrib and non-free repos. At present nvidia uses non-free packages for the entire driver stack (userspace, kernel and firmware).
To install the non-free drivers, follow the instructions on the page below.
#nouveau, official channel
Optimus at Nouveau wiki (this link is the recent X documentation )
The Debian contrib/non-free repos provide the (older) LTS drivers in binary format as they are officially part of Debian.
Newer drivers may be provided by (3rd party) nvidia repos - but new Debian users are advised to proceed with caution (Don't Break Debian)
Please note that the timeline of driver version releases and lifecycle (EoL/depreciation) of exact graphics card models are determined by nVidia.
Wayland is supported on the non-free drivers from version 495 onwards - but this may require addition configuration (see the installation page links above)
It is recommened to install linux-headers and use the DKMS driver installation packages from the repos, as this allows the driver modules to be re-built with linux kernel upgrades.
Please note that nvidia drivers are installed as a kernel module - so may have issues with secure boot, unless the kernel is signed with a MOK key.
Mali
MaliGraphics - General page with details on Mali GPUs, information on how to install the proprietary drivers
PanfrostLima - Information on the free and open-source Lima and Panfrost drivers for Mali GPUs
TextMode
Special text mode: TextMode_132x60
Troubleshooting
If you get a fixed low resolution (like 1024 x 768) with no choice of higher resolution in GUI and/or xorg-server log errors with missing device (like (EE) open /dev/dri/Card0 no such file or device) and/or non starting display manager (sddm etc), make sure that your kernel is up to date (as the kernel has to recognize the graphics device). Also make sure that the appropriate firmware packages are up to date.