1. Passed on my own hardware. I removed my local changes, downgraded to the versions of jockey-common jockey-gtk and nvidia-common currently in precise. Then I enabled -proposed, updated, upgraded the three packages, ran jockey-gtk and verified it works. The experimental driver is displayed correctly in the GUI. I then went ahead and installed it and rebooted, and verified it came up with that driver loaded and unity working normally.
2. Passed on independent verification. I solicited a random nvidia/precise user on #ubuntu-devel (thanks again ion!), had them repeat the above steps (except for the actual driver installation), and verify that the experimental driver was available for them as well. Thus, verification passed. The one caveat I should add for completeness is that if the user updates but does not upgrade, then running jockey won't work, because the jockey currently in precise can't cope with there being drivers named "experimental-NNN" in the archive. The fix is of course to do the upgrade, but I am a little worried some users may get caught by this. One way to minimize this might be to roll out the nvidia-common and jockey changes *now*, and hold off a few days on introducing the -experimental-304 packages, but maybe I'm being overcautious? -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to jockey in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1047681 Title: Add package nvidia-experimental for tracking nvidia beta drivers Status in “jockey” package in Ubuntu: In Progress Status in “nvidia-common” package in Ubuntu: In Progress Status in “nvidia-graphics-drivers-experimental-304” package in Ubuntu: Fix Released Status in “nvidia-settings-experimental-304” package in Ubuntu: Fix Released Status in “jockey” source package in Precise: Fix Committed Status in “nvidia-common” source package in Precise: Fix Committed Status in “nvidia-graphics-drivers-experimental-304” source package in Precise: Fix Committed Status in “nvidia-settings-experimental-304” source package in Precise: Fix Committed Status in “jockey” source package in Quantal: In Progress Status in “nvidia-graphics-drivers-experimental-304” source package in Quantal: Fix Released Status in “nvidia-settings-experimental-304” source package in Quantal: Fix Released Bug description: [Impact] NVIDIA posts beta versions of their drivers to be tested over several weeks. These drivers usually include important features and fixes but also sometimes include known issues or regressions that make them unsuitable or too risky for us to consider inclusion in the nvidia-current-updates package. However certain commercial Linux games require features/fixes present only in these NVIDIA beta drivers at the time of their release. Ubuntu users who purchase these games currently have to manually install the beta driver (or wait a month or two for it to appear in -updates). Providing these drivers via nvidia-experimental will enable them to install and run the game within the Ubuntu packaging system. [Fix] The nvidia-experimental-NNN binary package (and associated nvidia-setup-NNN) is established (provided by the nvidia-graphics-drivers-experimental source package) for quantal 12.10 and precise 12.04. This uses the packaging scripts from nvidia-current-updates, with the renamed package and new .run files. The nvidia-experimental-NNN package will be visible to users via Jockey as normal, due to logic provided in nvidia-common. When a user installs the experimental package, any other nvidia drivers will be disabled. They will remain on the selected nvidia-experimental-NNN until they upgrade to a new Ubuntu release or LTS point release, at which point they'll be returned to nvidia-current. They can of course manually switch from nvidia-experimental-NNN back to nvidia-current or nvidia-current-updates (or some newer nvidia-experimental-MMM) if they wish. The control file for the experimental package proposed for precise has some differences from the one in quantal, and also has some differences against the non-experimental nvidia driver in precise. Here is an explanation of those differences in turn: * Conflicts/Replaces on nvidia-*-modaliases (from precise's nvidia package) are no longer needed. The modaliases packages were used in previous releases but no longer exist in precise. Since people can't upgrade from those previous versions directly to nvidia*experimental, there is no need to have Conflicts/Replaces. * Conflicts/Replaces/Provides of various nvidia/fglrx packages (from quantal's nvidia-experimental package) are only needed for quantal forward. These are required by the new restricted drivers UI in quantal. Since that UI is not in precise, we don't need it in precise. (Ref. quantal changelog entry for nvidia-graphics-drivers 304.43-0ubuntu3.) [Regression Potential] The reason we're adding this package in the first place is because of concerns that beta drivers will have a high risk of regressions. Thus, users need to be aware they are taking these risks when they opt-in to the driver. As mentioned above, nvidia-current and nvidia-current-updates will still be available to them in case they have problems. In a worst case scenario they may need to do this from a recovery session. 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