Consequences: Old Hardware -> Driver -> Kernel [Solved]

[nobicycle]

Hi,
If I have an old Nvidia 6600 graphics card.
On installing the driver it says

You are currently installing a version of nvidia-drivers that is
* known not to work with a video card you have installed on your
* system.
* Add the following mask entry to /etc/portage/package.mask by
* echo ">=x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-305.0.0" >> /etc/portage/package.mask

Obviously I would use sudo equo mask ">=x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-305.0.0"
As we know, some packages such as x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers are specific to kernel version.
Example x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-313.18#3.5.0-sabayon

My question is this, once old hardware is no longer supported by driver upgrades, does this mean kernel upgrades are impossible? In the case above - I can not use a kernel above 3.5.0-sabayon?

[Provia]

As i can see from nvidia website you have to install 304.64 driver(http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/linux-di ... er-uk.html) wich is also available for kernel 3.7 (http://packages.sabayon.org/show/nvidia ... 5,standard). This will support old geforce 6 series.

PS: Of course the open-source driver nouveau is also available(https://packages.sabayon.org/show/xf86- ... 5,standard).

[nobicycle]

Thank you provia.
Your post showed the driver was available for kernels above 3.5, whereas for months I assummed they were not available because equo did not pull then in. Even with no masks in equo. Actually I had to specify in full "x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-304.64#3.7.0-sabayon" to get it installed, x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers alone did not work.
I put it down as a quirk.
Will investigate further if it ever happens again.