Re: Some precise procedure...

[Gary Jennejohn]

On Sun, 07 May 2017 05:11:13 -0700 (PDT)
"Jeffrey Bouquet"  wrote:

> Given the following procedure:
> 
> svn up /usr/src
> make buildworld
> make buildkernel
> make installkernel
> mergmaster
> reboot single user
> mergemaster
> make installworld
> pkg install compatN-i386
> reboot
> make check-old
> make delete-old
> 
> etc [ pardon the missing stuff and out of order, this is from memory]
> 
> At which precise point either
> 1... Xorg fails to work
> 2... nvidia-driver fails to work?
> Because in my experience unless a minor upgrade, it happens every time, and
> I am caught unawares.. so am wanting in the summaries in UPDATING
> 3a... do not proceed beyond this without backups, as your video driver may 
> not work...
> and am slightly confused.
> If I svn, but do not buildworld,  is nvidia-driver somehow more unusable? etc 
> etc. 
> looking at it from an entirely newbie frame of mind, because  a more 
> authoritative
> source than I may know more about the precise how and why an svn OR a 
> buildworld
> should not be attempted if one is more concerned about the driver not breaking
> or being unusable 'version mismatch' upon upgrade, than the upgrade itself.
> 
> tl;dr
> anyone have an expert summary?  if not, just thanks for reading, or throw a 
> concept
> at me. 
> 1... Xorg ceases to work and/or 
>

I also use nvidia-driver.

I ALWAYS test a new kernel for compatibility with Xorg/nvidia-driver
before I decide to make it the default.

I have a bash alias called mitk (make install kernel to /boot/test):

mikt is aliased to `pushd /usr/src;make -s installkernel 
KODIR=/boot/test;nbt;popd'

nbt is aliased to `nextboot -k test'

At the next boot the new test kernel will be loaded.

If nvidia-modeset.ko fails to load (that's what the newer nvidia-driver
reuires), then I know the kernel is no longer compatible.

If starting Xorg fails then I also knaow that the new kernel is no
longer compatible.

I just do a reboot to get the old, working kernel again.  I then
have the option to update nvidia-driver, if I consider it to be
important to me.

Generally, it's not Xorg itself which is failing, but rather the
nvidia-driver.

If Xorg starts OK then I have a bash shell function called t2k
which copies the test kernel to /boot/kernel.  Here it is:

t2k is a function
t2k ()
{
cd /boot;
rm -rf kernel.oldold;
mv kernel.old kernel.oldold;
mv kernel kernel.old;
mkdir kernel;
cp test/* kernel;
touch kernel/linker.hints;
cd
}

-- 
Gary Jennejohn
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Re: Some precise procedure...

[Gary Palmer]

On Sun, May 07, 2017 at 05:11:13AM -0700, Jeffrey Bouquet wrote:
> Given the following procedure:
> 
> svn up /usr/src
> make buildworld
> make buildkernel
> make installkernel
> mergmaster
> reboot single user
> mergemaster
> make installworld
> pkg install compatN-i386
> reboot
> make check-old
> make delete-old
> 
> etc [ pardon the missing stuff and out of order, this is from memory]
> 
> At which precise point either
> 1... Xorg fails to work
> 2... nvidia-driver fails to work?
> Because in my experience unless a minor upgrade, it happens every time, and
> I am caught unawares.. so am wanting in the summaries in UPDATING
> 3a... do not proceed beyond this without backups, as your video driver may 
> not work...
> and am slightly confused.
> If I svn, but do not buildworld,  is nvidia-driver somehow more unusable? etc 
> etc. 
> looking at it from an entirely newbie frame of mind, because  a more 
> authoritative
> source than I may know more about the precise how and why an svn OR a 
> buildworld
> should not be attempted if one is more concerned about the driver not breaking
> or being unusable 'version mismatch' upon upgrade, than the upgrade itself.
> 
> tl;dr
> anyone have an expert summary?  if not, just thanks for reading, or throw a 
> concept
> at me. 
> 1... Xorg ceases to work and/or 

You should add 

PORTS_MODULES+=x11/nvidia-driver

to /etc/make.conf so that the nvidia driver is automatically rebuilt every
time you build the kernel to prevent such issues.  Add in any other
ports that depend on the kernel data structures such as 
emulators/virtualbox-ose-kmod

The kernel ABI is not guaranteed to be stable on the -current branch
so any modules you load in to the kernel need to be rebuilt for each
kernel.

Regards,

Gary
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