Bug#1013462: libnvidia-allocator1 has worthless description
On Fri, Jun 24, 2022 at 08:06:52AM +0200, Andreas Beckmann wrote:
> TBH, I have no clue what that library is good for. Nvidia was not very
> informative when adding library, these are the two places where it is
> mentioned in the documentation:
>
>o Various libraries that are used internally by other driver components.
> These include '/usr/lib/libnvidia-cfg.so.510.73.08',
> [...]
> '/usr/lib/libnvidia-allocator.so.510.73.08'.
>
> * Added support for the GBM API. This adds the new symlink
> nvidia-drm_gbm.so pointing to the file libnvidia-allocator.so.VERSION to
> implement a GBM backend driver usable with the GBM loader from the Mesa
> [...]
>
> Do you have some suggestions what to put into the description instead?
Sorry, no. I tried googling before I posted the bug report, hoping to find
a useful summary but didn't find anything.
> ("Nvidia probably knows a reason for the existence of this library."
> wouldn't be helpful either.)
Maybe something like "Nvidia hasn't bothered documenting what this library is
for" might encourage them to volunteer some details :)
craig
--
craig sanders
Bug#1013462: libnvidia-allocator1 has worthless description
On 24/06/2022 04.21, Craig Sanders wrote:
A package description should provide a brief summary of what the package
actually DOES and maybe some reason why I might want to install it (or NOT
install it), i.e. what actual benefit or utility it provides. "package foo
contains foo" is completely useless.
TBH, I have no clue what that library is good for.
Nvidia was not very informative when adding library,
these are the two places where it is mentioned in the documentation:
o Various libraries that are used internally by other driver components.
These include '/usr/lib/libnvidia-cfg.so.510.73.08',
[...]
'/usr/lib/libnvidia-allocator.so.510.73.08'.
* Added support for the GBM API. This adds the new symlink
nvidia-drm_gbm.so pointing to the file libnvidia-allocator.so.VERSION to
implement a GBM backend driver usable with the GBM loader from the Mesa
[...]
Do you have some suggestions what to put into the description instead?
("Nvidia probably knows a reason for the existence of this library."
wouldn't be helpful either.)
Andreas
Bug#1013462: libnvidia-allocator1 has worthless description
Package: libnvidia-allocator1
Version: 510.73.08-2
This package has the following description:
Description-en: NVIDIA allocator runtime library
The NVIDIA binary driver provides optimized hardware acceleration of
OpenGL/GLX/EGL/GLES applications via a direct-rendering X Server
for graphics cards using NVIDIA chip sets.
.
This package contains the private nvidia-allocator runtime library.
This description says NOTHING that isn't in the package name. It's just a
trivial restatement of the name without any useful information. The name
"libnvidia-allocator1" already says that the package is somehow related to
nvidia and that it's a library called nvidia-allocator.
A package description should provide a brief summary of what the package
actually DOES and maybe some reason why I might want to install it (or NOT
install it), i.e. what actual benefit or utility it provides. "package foo
contains foo" is completely useless.
i.e. what does the "nvidia-allocator runtime library" do?
Is it some weird obscure thing that is only useful in very specialised
circumstances? or is it something that provides useful features or performance
enhancements or whatever in a lot of situations? Will it cause me problems
if I install it without actually needing it? Will not installing it cause
problems? Is it useful for graphics rendering? or only useful for CUDA
applications?
The purpose of a package description is to provide the user with enough
information to decide if it's something they might want to consider
installing. It's not just meaningless filler text that's only there to fulfil
the letter of debian policy requirements.
And yes, I'm aware that this package is far from the only one that has a
useless description, there are many other packages with descriptions that
are just "package foo provides foo". It's not even the only nvidia-related
package with a useless description. That doesn't excuse this package, it just
means that many other packages have the same bug.
craig
ps: to make matters even worse, even after installing it, the package doesn't
provide any information about itself in /usr/share/doc/libnvidia-allocator1.
Neither does any other nvidia-related package. No useful information to be
found, even after running:
find /usr/share/doc/*nvidia*/ -type f -exec zgrep -i 'allocator' {} +
