Screen starts flickering when dkms autoinstalls nvidia on linux-2.6.31-5-rt

[Nicolas Joyard]

Binary package hint: nvidia-glx-185

Running Ubuntu 9.10.
When booting on the 2.6.31-5-rt kernel, dkms starts, displaying:

* Running DKMS auto installation service for kernel 2.6.31-5-rt
* nvidia (185.18.36)

The screen immediately starts to flicker. X is not started and I'm directed to console login. Keyboard is very unreliable (about 1 on 10 keystrokes is actually passed to the console) thus I cannot login to see additional logs. Pressing Ctrl-alt-del works and immediately stops the flickering.

After rebooting to a -generic kernel, I can see the following in /var/log/dkms_autoinstaller :

nvidia (185.18.36): Installing module.
........(bad exit status: 10)
  Build failed. Installation skipped.

[DJ_DEF (dj-def)]

I confirm this bug, please do something, fix this... it's always the same problem every time :(

[franc00018 (franc00018)]

Nvidia drivers are never working with the newest rt kernel, nothing new, we have to wait :(

[Nicolas Joyard (joyard-nicolas)]

@franc00018: I know, but I think such an error is kind of unexpected. The module refusing to build, or to load when starting X, would not really annoy me (I run the -rt kernel when recording music, so I don't really need HW acceleration). But messing up the display when building (or more precisely, when triggering the module build) seems kind of weird...

[Nicolas Joyard (joyard-nicolas)]

I think I can confirm this is nvidia-related, as I just tried to remove the nvidia proprietary driver, and the -rt kernel now boots just fine. (it is not due to the latest -rt upgrade as I tried to boot it without removing the driver, and the issue was still present).

Could anyone with the appropriate knowledge please give directions on additional information to provide to further identify the origin of this bug ?

[franc00018 (franc00018)]

"But messing up the display when building (or more precisely, when triggering the module build) seems kind of weird..."
it happens after the build fail, the X server does this mess when there is no nvidia module and it is written nvidia in xorg.conf

This problem is occurring everytime there is a new rt kernel update.
dkms tries to build module, it fails, because nvidia driver is not made for this kernel as it is older

[Dmitry Savin (envelsavinds)]

I have 2.6.31-12-generic kernel and nvidia-glx-185 driver
After kernel update (from 2.6.31-11) during DKMS work saw screen flickering. After some time it stopped and load continued.
All other times load came well.