Description of the issue (screenshots if relevant):
Drivers for nVidia Graphics.
Relevant informations (hardware involved, software version, logs or output…):
NA
There is an important announcement here about drivers for nVidia hardware. Those of you with such hardware need to respond to this. Especially those of you with Legacy nVidia hardware.
This is a great opportunity to talk to developers about nvidia drivers.
The issue is the same as it has always been with nVidia drivers. They are written to work up to a certain kernel version. When a new kernel is released the older nvidia driver packages will not work. It is that simple and it has always been this way.
So when nVidia users see a new kernel version and DON’T see new nvida software why do they keep trying to build something that everyone in Linux World knows will not work? When there is a new Linux kernel there has to be new nVida software. Every-time. Until that software is built in your Linux distribution your choices as an nVidia user are two.
Use the previous kernel version that works with nVidia proprietary packages.
OR:
Use the newer kernel with open-source (nouveau) driver.
The issue of how long it takes OpenMandriva to build new nVidia packages is a separate issue. It will not change until users bother to talk directly to developers about this. I do know that @Colin tries very hard to keep these up to date. But @Colin is not always available to do this, plus he can’t do this until nVidia the company makes the new software available, plus sometimes there are issues building new packages and it takes more time.
The link in my first post is a perfect opportunity for users to talk to developers about this.
I think it is some of both. This is an area where I believe it would be best if we had a packaging rule that if a developer builds a new kernel then that developer needs to be sure that all out-of-tree kernel modules also get built. The kernel developer does not necessarily need to be the one that builds the module packages but he or she needs to see to it that the appropriate person is notified that there are out-of-tree module packages that need building ASAP. And user need to understand that ASAP means As Soon As Possible not immediately.
A better way might be to make this automatic in our build system, something like, new kernel package goes in testing repo > auto notify developer A to build corresponding nVidia packages, auto notify developer B to build corresponding VirtualBox packages, and so on.
Yes, packaging rule and/or publishing rule:
a developer builds a new kernel > new packages stay in /testing repo until all out-of-tree kernel modules also get built > then test the stack as usual > then move everything from /testing to /main.
We have agreed on the need for a policy and method to link building of out-or-tree kernel modules to the release of a new kernel package (when the kernel packages goes in testing repo)
