blacklist installation for non-free drivers (was: Re: review request for the debconf templates used by the nvidia graphics driver [non-free])

[Andreas Beckmann]

On 2012-07-10 18:13, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> /lib/modprobe.d) use "cp -a", which creates a dangling symlink.

and how does modprobe and friends cope with dangling symlinks?

> Whoever is responsible for setting up alternatives could add their own
> initramfs-tools hook, though.

Could work:

* ship conffile
  /etc/{nvidia,fglrx}/{nvidia,fglrx}-blacklists-{nouveau,radeon}.conf
      # If you edit this file, don't forget to run update-initramfs
      # afterwards.
      blacklist {nouveau,radeon}

* install it as a slave alternative into /etc/modprobe.d whenever the
respective driver is activated
* add a hook to "fixup" the dangling symlink in the initramfs
* trigger update-initramfs from trigger processing that updates the
alternatives whenever something gets installed/removed


>  But then how do you ensure the admin
> knows to rebuild the initramfs when switching alternatives?

* put it in the documentation :-)

* write an update-glx script :-) which does
     update-alternatives ... $1
     update-initramfs
and update documentation to use that instead of u-a

But manually reconfiguring the glx alternative is something that will be
rarely used, so putting it in the documentation should be OK.

The default case would be automatic reconfiguration whenever the
packages get installed/upgraded/removed and there will be at most one
alternative available - that's that case we should optimize for, to get
rid of the need to "purge a particular package" to avoid the blacklist
side effects.

Would there be a chance to still get this into wheezy?
Changes would involve the nvidia-kernel-common/fglrx-driver packages (no
more blacklist shipping) and the glx-alternatives source package (ship
the blacklist and appropriate initramfs hooks, add the slave alternative)

Andreas