nvidia-kernel-dkms fails to build nvidia driver with backport kernel

[Vincent Cheng]

On Wed, Dec 25, 2013 at 7:17 PM, John Coltrane
<johnColtrane39 at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hello list,
>
> hopefully this is the right place to post my problem.
>
> My box runs mostly on wheezy, rarely with packages from wheezy-backports.
>
> Normally kernel 3.2.0-4-amd64 from stable is used on my box, but I need
> to have kernel linux-image-3.11-0.bpo.2-amd64 from backports.
>
> There already is nvidia-* 304.88-1+deb7u1 on my box, accompanied by dkms
> 2.2.0.3-1.2 and nvidia-kernel-dkms 304.88-1+deb7u1. The headerfiles are
> also installed:
>
> ii linux-headers-3.11-0.bpo.2-all 3.11.10-1~bpo70+1 amd64 All header
> files for Linux 3.11 (meta-package)
> ii linux-headers-3.11-0.bpo.2-all-amd64 3.11.10-1~bpo70+1 amd64 All
> header files for Linux 3.11 (meta-package)
> ii linux-headers-3.11-0.bpo.2-amd64 3.11.10-1~bpo70+1 amd64 Header files
> for Linux 3.11-0.bpo.2-amd64
> ii linux-headers-3.11-0.bpo.2-common 3.11.10-1~bpo70+1 amd64 Common
> header files for Linux 3.11-0.bpo.2
>
> The headerfiles for 3.2.0-4-amd64 are also installed. With 3.2.0-4 all
> is working well (nvidia related).
>
> gcc is version 4.6.3 (Debian 4.6.3-14), both the stable and the
> backports kernels are compiled with this version.
>
> When nvidia-dkms tries to build the nvidia.ko kernelmodule for 3.11-0 it
> fails, here are the last few lines (where an error comes up) from
> /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/304.88/build/make.log:
>
> /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/304.88/build/nv-i2c.c: In function
> ‘nv_i2c_del_adapter’:
> /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/304.88/build/nv-i2c.c:327:14: error: void value not
> ignored as it ought to be
> make[4]: *** [/var/lib/dkms/nvidia/304.88/build/nv-i2c.o] Error 1
> make[3]: *** [_module_/var/lib/dkms/nvidia/304.88/build] Error 2
> make[2]: *** [sub-make] Error 2
> make[1]: *** [all] Error 2
> make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.11-0.bpo.2-amd64'
> make: *** [modules] Error 2
> make: Leaving directory `/var/lib/dkms/nvidia/304.88/build'

The nvidia kernel module often fails to build with newer kernels than
what was released at the time, and vice versa. IIRC there were lots of
bug reports about nvidia failing to build against linux 3.10 (e.g.
#717311, #717361, #714981), which were later fixed when Andreas added
a patch to fix those build failures, but I'm not sure if anyone ever
tried building something from the 304.xx branch with linux 3.11. Your
best bet would be to try a newer version (319.72) from
wheezy-backports, which, according to the changelog [1], does support
linux 3.11.

Regards,
Vincent

[1] http://ftp-master.metadata.debian.org/changelogs//non-free/n/nvidia-graphics-drivers/nvidia-graphics-drivers_319.72-1~bpo70+1_changelog