[pkg-nvidia-devel] Bug#479541: nvidia-graphics-drivers: patch mechanism silently disabled and badly documented

[Marc Haber]

Package: nvidia-graphics-drivers
Version: 169.12-1
Severity: normal

Hi,

obviously, the n-g-d source package has a mechanism to apply patches
to the driver. When I tried using this mechanism to apply the patch
from http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=110088 to enable
myself to use kernel 2.6.25 on my only nvidia box, I found out that
the mechanism is currently disabled (by virtue of "if false && ..." in
debian/rules) and thus the patch that is already in debian/patches is
not enabled.

Neither the comments in debian/rules nor debian/changelog gives a
rationale why the mechanism was disabled and whether it hurts to not
having the patch that is in the patches directory applied.

Please,
  * add more documentation to the source package
  * do not disable mechanisms that are obvious to use
  * if you don't want a patch applied, remove it from the
    patches subdir

The way the package is arranged at the moment is misleading for third
parties wanting to apply patches.

Greetings
Marc

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.25.1-scyw00225 (PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash