Russ Allberry wrote: "I think the solution for your particular problem would be to downgrade the Recommends of nvidia-glx from nvidia-kernel-source to a Suggests. I'm not sure if that would cause any other problems. At first glance, my guess is that anyone installing nvidia-kernel-source probably knows enough about what they're doing that the extra weight of Recommends isn't necessary for them, so I'm inclined to say that's a good change. But I'd also like to see what Andreas thinks."
Thanks for your explanations, although I do have a couple ?s. I have been investigating this issue further lately but was unable to send an e-mail due to surgery on my right hand. I see that there are 2 source pkgs, nvidia-kernel-legacy-173xx-source & nvidia-kernel-legacy-173xx-dkms. The former for people like me using make-kpkg or those using m-a. The latter for the auto install with dkms users. The pkg description, of the former, states: "PLEASE read /usr/share/doc/nvidia-kernel-legacy-173xx-source/README.Debian.gz for building information. If you want the kernel module to be automatically installed via DKMS, install nvidia-kernel-legacy-173xx-dkms instead." In the testing, my main system, it is way at the bottom and likely missed, whereas in the unstable it is near the top. So it appears these 2 source pkgs are mutually exclusive. The depends, recommends and suggests listing for each seem to be correct and should not cause a problem. Before the newest source pkg upgrade I always just upgraded the source first and then upgraded the glx whenever I got around to building and installing the new module. If I understand correctly, there was a change in the glx pkg that caused the problem I experienced. I see in the glx pkg description it lists a virtual pkg; nvidia-kernel-173(version) which is provided by nvidia-kernel-legacy-173xx-dkms. Shouldn't it also be provided by the other source pkg, nvidia-kernel-legacy-173xx-source? Maybe that's where the confusion starts. Of course I knew the module had to be built and installed before the glx due to dependency issues, but for some reason just installing the source pkg wanted to pull in all the other stuff. Maybe it has been changed now, I don't remember what it was like the last 2 times I upgraded the source. But just looking at the pkg descriptions and the depends,etc., it appears to be correct. I haven't booted into my sid install lately, so don't know the current condition there, this testing is my main system,... same HDD, different partitions. I used to build the kernel headers pkg also when I needed several kernel modules, but now only use the nvidia one. I guess I always thought quite a few users *did* build custom kernels, maybe that has changed in the past few years with more people using Debian and the ubuntus. Well thanks for your work and the info. Steven Altermatt > > -- > Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) > <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/<http://www.eyrie.org/%7Eeagle/> > > >