NVIDIA's Oldest Legacy Driver Will Not Gain New Support

[pingufunkybeat]

Is there a similarly simple and systematic (no need to alter the process in any way between driver releases, works for years in a row exactly the same way) and reliable (has never failed and required user to investigate the reason) way to update the open source driver modules? Basically something that could be scripted with a couple of lines of code and then forgotten.

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

On gentoo, you need to compile your own kernel, but other than that, it's "emerge -u @world"

[pmorph]

If I (or perhaps when I) spend enough time with the open source drivers, yeah it can probably be done that way. Of course, it's a simple enable in the kernel away, which is oh-so-difficult. Really, it's very hard, dunno I might hurt a finger.
I had quite a few problems with my initial install of nvidia's drivers on gentoo - the nvidia settings panel still thinks it belongs at another resolution and magnifies itself to be almost unusable (that's about the best description I can give). Updates of course are now an emerge away. The same with fglrx (which I use for the OpenGL 3.x support). Open source drivers I could probably script in to be about the same.
And other than installation time, I've spent more time trying fix nvidia driver problems than fglrx ones - I'm sure others have different experiences, but I haven't.

Yeah, compiling it to kernel is not so bad. I'm just saying that installing a driver from a binary blob is not so bad either. And it works especially well for someone like me, who runs Debian stable with kernel updates few and far between.

[mirv]

This is what I do to update the Nvidia driver:
- download the blob
- open x-term
- cd to download path
- get root access
- chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86-nnn.nn.nn-pkg1.run
- ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-nnn.nn.nn-pkg1.run

The exact same process has worked for me for years now; the installer is polished and tested enough to just work.

Is there a similarly simple and systematic (no need to alter the process in any way between driver releases, works for years in a row exactly the same way) and reliable (has never failed and required user to investigate the reason) way to update the open source driver modules? Basically something that could be scripted with a couple of lines of code and then forgotten.

You do realise that the install process needs to fail only once and I'll quickly be spending more time solving it than I spend installing the NVIDIA driver the next 10 years with the process I described above.

If I (or perhaps when I) spend enough time with the open source drivers, yeah it can probably be done that way. Of course, it's a simple enable in the kernel away, which is oh-so-difficult. Really, it's very hard, dunno I might hurt a finger.
I had quite a few problems with my initial install of nvidia's drivers on gentoo - the nvidia settings panel still thinks it belongs at another resolution and magnifies itself to be almost unusable (that's about the best description I can give). Updates of course are now an emerge away. The same with fglrx (which I use for the OpenGL 3.x support). Open source drivers I could probably script in to be about the same.
And other than installation time, I've spent more time trying fix nvidia driver problems than fglrx ones - I'm sure others have different experiences, but I haven't.

[pmorph]

Well, both fglrx and nvidia binaries install as modules - you do realise that that's possible with open source drivers too? It might cut down on your driver installation time.

This is what I do to update the Nvidia driver:
- download the blob
- open x-term
- cd to download path
- get root access
- chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86-nnn.nn.nn-pkg1.run
- ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-nnn.nn.nn-pkg1.run

The exact same process has worked for me for years now; the installer is polished and tested enough to just work.

Is there a similarly simple and systematic (no need to alter the process in any way between driver releases, works for years in a row exactly the same way) and reliable (has never failed and required user to investigate the reason) way to update the open source driver modules? Basically something that could be scripted with a couple of lines of code and then forgotten.

You do realise that the install process needs to fail only once and I'll quickly be spending more time solving it than I spend installing the NVIDIA driver the next 10 years with the process I described above.

[pingufunkybeat]

Not sure I agree with this. What Nvidia cards are unsupported by their drivers?

Unsupported by the kernel. The nouveau drm only supports a small subset of the functionality. Almost all other hardware on this planet works with Linux out of the box.

[pingufunkybeat]

If I didn't care about having a driver that only supports half the features of the chipset and isn't optimized for 3d. Yes, I would run open source drivers. This works for "ALOT" of people that don't want/use those features. But I like alot of people have a $150+ GPU and to want to use a Binary(ati/nvidia) driver to get the most performance/features out of that investment.

And who exactly is preventing you from doing this?

[pingufunkybeat]

No. Spending 20 seconds to install a new driver is not a pain in the ass.
Configuring and compiling the whole kernel just to get a new gfx driver is a pain in the ass.

Configuring and compiling the kernel is a normal thing that every user should do regularly, for security and performance reasons. And you can install a kernel provided by your distribution too. The blob doesn't save you any work, it's always extra work.

Spending 20 seconds (more like a couple of minutes) every time you upgrade any part of your system gets old pretty quickly. I did it for 6 years, and prefer the open source approach.

[brent]

Well, both fglrx and nvidia binaries install as modules - you do realise that that's possible with open source drivers too? It might cut down on your driver installation time.

DRM is shipped with the linux kernel, though. So, for a complete graphics stack update, you usually have to install an up-to-date kernel. Same if you need an update of WiFi drivers and the like.

IMO the monolithic kernel model (as in: one huge package that includes everything and the kitchen sink) doesn't work that well anymore.

[mirv]

No. Spending 20 seconds to install a new driver is not a pain in the ass.
Configuring and compiling the whole kernel just to get a new gfx driver is a pain in the ass.

Well, both fglrx and nvidia binaries install as modules - you do realise that that's possible with open source drivers too? It might cut down on your driver installation time.

[pmorph]

It's not hard, it's a pain in the ass.

No. Spending 20 seconds to install a new driver is not a pain in the ass.
Configuring and compiling the whole kernel just to get a new gfx driver is a pain in the ass.