Bug#702782: broken glx alternative

[Gaudenz Steinlin]

Hi Andreas

Andreas Beckmann <anbe at debian.org> writes:

> On 2013-03-11 12:07, Gaudenz Steinlin wrote:
>> The only solution I currently is to drop the nvidia alternative and to show
>> all the nvidia driver version as individual options in the glx alternative.
>> This avoids the "double" alternative redirection which leads to this problem.
>
> IIRC that was needed to avoid putting internal knowledge about the
> nvidia packages layout into to many places ... but for other reasons
> as

You could still manage the alternatives from the nvidia package, but
instead of doing it with the nvidia alternative just directly add it as
another option to the glx alternative.

> well maybe we should introduce an update-glx command for wheezy+1.

That might at least work around the problem.

> The glx alternatives in experimental manage the module blacklist, too,
> and therefore need an update-initramfs -u after reconfiguring the
> alternative.

I noticed that it also updates the initramfs. But at least for live
systems I think you want to completely blacklist all of nouveau and
nvidia in the initramfs to be able to choose the right module later
during boot. The alternative to this is to do it in the initramfs
itself. But also then the blacklist handling for the initramfs is not
needed. I actually prefer the approach I proposed in #685617 because it
does not depend on the alternative for the kernel module.

If I understand that correctly the video kernel module in the initramfs
is only needed to display a graphical boot screen (eg. plymouth). Or is
there anything else to it?

>
> please try
>   dpkg-reconfigure glx-alternative-nvidia
> after manually changing the nvidia alternative

Yes that works. But with the package from experimental it also updates
the initramfs. Which takes some time if done during boot and is quite
useless unless your next boot is on the same hardware.

To just fix the alternative "update-alternatives --set glx
/usr/lib/nvidia" is enough. But it's IMHO still a bug that you have to
fiddle with the glx alternative just to fix the nvidia one.

Gaudenz

-- 
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
~ Samuel Beckett ~