On Friday 31 July 2009, Greg M. Johnson wrote: > Okay, let's agree that the Linux enthusiast, when re/building a new > system from scratch, should seek out components that are > open-source friendly. But what about the business of satisfying > customers who need a functioning OS in their workplace (but happen > to have problematic cards) or the political movement of empowering > widespread adoption of free-as-in-beer OS'es? > > I had Ubuntu 8.04.1 on a box, and decided to upgrade. I got a > message that said because I had an Nvidia card, I would lose > features upon upgrading, because there was no driver available for > 8.10. My solution? Linux Mint! I don't know if Linux Mint will > later hit me with exactly the same problem when I upgrade it, but I > was agitated enough to switch.
It might -- it depends on how the Mint as a distro wants to handle it. Being that Mint is based on Ubuntu, chances are they might decide to do something similar. > Were there no alternatives? The first alternative is to see if the 'nv' driver that ships with X.org will work with your card, which would at least give you 2D support for a single output. [If you need TwinView, that requires the proprietary 'nvidia' driver.] This is easy to change in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, and tolerable in the short term or as long as you can live without 3D. However there are many cards the 'nv' driver won't work for. Another option would be to look into building a custom kernel along with the older Nvidia driver. If your card was supported up until the latest release then you probably need the 173xx Nvidia driver, which currently compiles with the Linux kernel up to 2.6.29, but no later. You might be able to do this using 'm-a' (Module Assistant) along with the Linux kernel source that corresponds to the kernel you're running. At least theoretically this wouldn't require having to know anything about kernel configuration, since you wouldn't be making any configuration changes. I have to suggest avoiding trying to build a "vinilla" kernel from kernel.org for Ubuntu, as the process required to do so is rather painful (requires AppArmor patching, getting the source for the add-on proprietary driver bundle, etc). If you look up your card in the Nvidia website for support you'll be able to find definitively which driver is required. Debian currently maintains the following Nvidia driver sources, which gives you idea the extent of the problem: nvidia-kernel-source (currently version 185.18.14) nvidia-kernel-legacy-173xx-source nvidia-kernel-legacy-96xx-source nvidia-kernel-legacy-71xx-source Or a third option (which I really don't like) is simply not to upgrade. Only works for so long and then you're stuck. > I'd imagine any other option, perhaps even forking a distro over > the card version, would be better than giving a new adopter such > a screen. Forking the distro is pretty much out of the question -- actually maintaining one is a Huculean effort. I'm glad at least there was a screen informing you of the problem -- that's at least better than upgrading and finding that the X graphical GUI didn't work. -- Chris -- Chris Knadle [email protected] _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Jul 1 - Linux High Performance Computing Aug 5 - TBD Sept 2 - Linux and HDTV
