[pkg-nvidia-devel] Bug#369316: nvidia-glx: please make the glx part installable without the rest

[Russ Allbery]

Marc Lehmann <debian-reportbug at plan9.de> writes:

> nvidia-glx currently depends on the nvidia-kernel module.

> However, there are good reasons for installing nvidia-glx (_not_ the
> x-driver) without either the driver nor the kernel module. This is the
> case when both of those are provided in other ways.

> The most common way is a chropted 32-bit env on, say, a 64-bit amd
> host. You cnanot install the kernel module there because the kernel is
> 64-bit. It does provide the neecssray hooks for the nvidia opengl
> libraries (and likely the xorg driver, too).

While I agree that the dependency makes life annoying for that particular
case, not having the dependency causes all sorts of problems in the more
common use case of a regular host.  nvidia-glx gets upgraded without
upgrading the kernel module and then stops working, or the kernel module
isn't installed and users are mystified over why the package doesn't run.
I'm hesitant to change the dependency to a recommends because I think a
lot more people will have difficulty getting the right set of packages
installed and everything working (and continuing to work) if the
dependency is less strict.

I'm not completely certain on this, and could be convinced, but I'm
nervous about it.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>