u-m should automatically install nvidia-glx-legacy if hardware requires it

[Barry Warsaw]

I just applied a weekend's worth of updates to feisty and it broke my X in several ways. First, apparently my hardware requires nvidia-glx-legacy but update-manager didn't detect this or install that package. I was left with nvidia-glx and my X would not start.

Further, once that package was installed I had to also install nvidia-xconfig and run that to get a usable /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. However, even that was not enough to restore my system to pre-update configuration.

I had to manually run nvidia-xconfig --twinview --xinerama to restore my dual headed config. But even /that/ wasn't enough!

Lastly, I had to manually edit /etc/X11/xorg.config file, changing the MetaModes line of my Screen 0 settings from:

    Option "MetaModes" "1024x768, 1024x768"

to

    Option "MetaModes" "1600x1200, 1600x1200"

Now I have my desktop environment back to where it was before I updated.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

I added a task for nvidia-glx because I would prefer a more generic way to handle this upgrade scenario than update-manager (something that works for people how use apt-get). Given the nature of the nvidia package that may well be impossible but at least I tried :)

I talked to Martin about it and the way to handle it in update-manager is to use restricted-manager in some way. Either by importing it at the end of the upgrade into u-m or by adding a commandline switch to it to deal with the situation.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

As per yesterday's discussion, it would be best to merge nvidia-glx{,-legacy} into one package and select the necessary driver version in the postinst. With the modalias lists moving from restricted-manager to l-r-m this should be straightforward to detect.

This would fix the upgrade for apt-get/aptitude users as well and wouldn't rely so much on GUI-heavy stuff.

[Loïc Martin (loic-martin3)]

There's another problem created by the adoption of the new 1.0-9755 nvidia driver.

According to the Readme at
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-9755/README/appendix-a.html

this package doesn't support anymore the GeForce4 cards (4xxx and 4xx Go series of graphic cards), still very common.

These cards aren't supported either by the legacy package (1.0-71xx series of the driver (I tested it to be sure, and it doesn't work on my 440 Go).

1.0-96xx is the driver for these cards. Should we require an UVF?

(The Ubuntu 1.0-9755 driver was proposed for me by the restricted-manager)

The list of supported devices is not up-to-date on Nvidia's site for the 1.0-9755 driver page, however the driver has an up-to-date list

[Loïc Martin (loic-martin3)]

Just a note : 1.0-9755 was included after an UVF to support GeForce 8800 cards. However, it drops support for the GeForce4 series (supported by the previous 1.0-9xxx driver)

[ricardisimo (ricardisimo)]

X broke for me as well, almost exactly the same scenario as above. I'm not terribly handy in a terminal, so instead I edited /etc/x11/xorg.conf via the Feisty Live CD, changing the driver to "nv" until I could replace 9755 with 96xx via Synaptic.

I mention all of this because it might be nice, when X breaks, to offer the user - right at bootup - to switch drivers to a predetermined backup... most likely the open version that came with install. If the user is savvier than me, and confident in their skills, they can still choose "No" and fix the problem in recovery mode or whatever. For the rest of us it'll at least get us to a safe place until we figure out what's up.

Sorry if I'm speaking out of place, and thank you for everything you guys do.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

As discussed on IRC and in comment 2, r-m is not exactly the right place to fix this. Once your X is broken, you cannot use X programs to repair it. Even when integrating this into update-manager, it will still bite people who use apt-get/aptitude, etc. So unifying the nvidia-glx packages and postinst time autodetection would be best IMHO.

[Marcelo Boveto Shima (marceloshima)]

I don't think postinst is the best option. All the work should be done at runtime with l-r-m IMHO.
With the detection been done at runtime would be possible to have nvidia + fglrx installed at the same machine. This is really usefull for livecds and usb-hd (I have one with feisty installed that I use at my notebook - ati 200m, don't supported by oss ati driver - and at my fathers pc - gforce 4 - and at my fathers notebook - i915). r-m would just blacklist the modules if oss drivers are selected.

This can be done by letting l-r-m dpkg-diverting the libs and modules. But I don't know how much time this takes. Maybe is not a viable solution.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Switching the milestone over to linux-restricted-modules.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Closing the u-m task as this is fixed in l-r-m now. Thanks Ben!