Nvidia Legacy Drivers & 3.8 Kernel Compatibility [Solved]

[tonyawards]

A bit of this was posted on the tail end of an already {Solved] thread, but I'm not sure about these latest nVidia driver set recommendations and their compatibility, so I'm reposting here with additional questions; hoping someone knows what's what with the drivers and older legacy cards...

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I have an older (GeForce 6150) nVidia card, and have been stuck with the 304.64 driver & userspace, masked as the last one to support my older card - which has been fine with me so far.

But I have seen that the 3.8 kernel is now in entropy (I'm on 3.7.4), but I don't see a 304.64 driver for 3.8... Is that right?

If so, any idea as to if/when nVidia plans to provide one, or is there another way to get into 3.8 without also getting a black screen for the nth time...?

And now, today - I see that with my *equo upgrade --ask* it wants to pull in these:

Code: Select all

   # (85/177) [sabayonlinux.org] x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-173.14.36#3.7.0-sabayon
>>     Versions: 304.64 / 3.7.0-sabayon / 3 ===> 173.14.36 / 3.7.0-sabayon / 1
>>      Action:          Downgrade
>>    # (86/177) [sabayonlinux.org] x11-drivers/nvidia-userspace-173.14.36
>>     Versions: 304.64 / NoTag / 1 ===> 173.14.36 / NoTag / 7

Now I'm not sure what will work for my older driver set if the 304.64 is not available for 3.8: the newer 313.18, this 173.14.36, or...?

The latest (#2) repository notice did not appear to apply to my 6150 card (I didn't think), but now I'm not totally sure about that either...

Anyone know what works - should I let the 173.14.36 downgrade be pulled in, and would that work with the 3.8 kernel too? Or unmask and go with 313.18? Or is there an even better idea for the older nVidia cards and the newer kernels?

Thanks, all.

[colock]

By feeling, if I were you, I would stick to 304.xx driver, with the latest possible kernel this driver has been built against.

I.e., keep 304.64 with kernel 3.7.

For newer kernels you should do some research, I have no idea.

[Matte88]

>> [2] [Sun, 17 Mar 2013 07:53:22 +0000] Titolo: Beware AMD Radeon legacy and NVIDIA GeForce legacy users
>> Contenuto:

As it always happens, proprietary video drivers fall short.
This time it's because we are, after one year, upgrading
X.Org to version 1.13. This means that some legacy drivers
have been removed:
- AMD Catalyst 12.6_beta_pre897
- NVIDIA legacy 96.xx
They don't work with the new X.Org, so either you are on your
own or have to switch to open source drivers.
Sorry, it's not our fault.

>> Link: http://www.sabayon.org/

[tonyawards]

Hi Matte88 – thanks for the input, and thanks to you too, colock.

Yes, I had seen that notice yesterday, and was hoping that it did not apply to me. I have been using 304.64, and I just saw that 304.84 has made it into the repository, today apparently. So I just unmasked my old drivers and masked the 313.18 to try, and it's working. Which most likely solves my upgrade issue, as the 304.84 is also available for the 3.8 kernel.

According to nVidia, here:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html
and
https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers ... /a_id/3142

they do plan to keep up, at least for a while. They're just a bit slow getting these out to the legacy users, I guess.

I'll be doing a kernel switcher to 3.8 shortly, using the 304.84 driver and userspace set, will report back, and hopefully mark this as solved. For now, it's looking as though my old GeForce 6150 may still have a bit of life yet...

[Ryuno-Ki]

I'll be doing a kernel switcher to 3.8 shortly, using the 304.84 driver and userspace set, will report back, and hopefully mark this as solved. For now, it's looking as though my old GeForce 6150 may still have a bit of life yet...

Oh, yeah, I'm using this card as well
Kind for you to be a tester

[tonyawards]

Well, it all works now.

What I had to do was first unmask the 313.18 nVidia driver/userspace set, in order for the kernel-switcher to work. Then, after doing the basic “switch” to the 3.8.3 kernel and pulling in the deps, I had to re-mask the newer drivers, and downgrade back to the 304.84 set.

Did a deptest, which complained about the 3.7.0 nVidia 313.18 set not being there since I had not yet rebooted, but otherwise was fine.

After the driver downgrade, it rebooted right back to the desktop, no black screen.

However, now, after the updates that I did and the kernel-switch, when I shut down I get a black screen, no shutdown graphics or progress scroll, nothing. Pressing f2 makes no difference. Strange. But that may be an issue for a separate thread; I'll look around a bit first.

Otherwise, all is fine, as best as I can tell. So I believe I can mark this solved.