Re: Prefer nvidia over nv when available
Hi David, |--== David Nusinow writes: [...] DN The idea for the future is that all the drivers will export a symbol table DN of the PCI ID's they support. The server will scan them for drivers DN supporting the required PCI ID. My plan is to have them export an DN additional symbol table consisting of driver names that they override. So DN nvidia would export an override table with nv in it. Cool, pretty much like kernel some modules then. DN The notable thing about this is that it exists entirely outside the DN packaging system, so it's entirely up to upstream. That is a Good Thing :) DN In the case of the DN various nvidia drivers, if the legacy drivers are updated to include these DN symbols then they'll be automatically loaded if they're available. If not, DN then the server will load something else (nv if available, or an DN arch-specific fallback like vesa if not). DN So, if Nvidia decides to update their drivers, they'll get the benefits of DN this. Let's say that, in the best case scenario, that Nvidia updates both their new and legacy drivers (71xx,96xx). Still the relevant Debian packages can't be installed at same time (as they are now), so the proper nvidia driver sporting the proper PCI ID might not be available on the system. Is there a workaround for this? For example in the Debian package for a legacy driver one could change the path of the file of the nvidia xorg driver, from: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so to /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv-96xx-.so so that the package doesn't conflict anymore with the other nvidia driver packages. Or other tricks like this one. Would this work/make sense? DN The PCI ID symbol table thing already exists upstream in the xserver DN master branch, but the code to auto-load the driver based on it doesn't DN exist yet, but that's my goal for next week. In the worst-case scenario, DN Nvidia won't add the necessary symbols and users will just have to edit DN their xorg.confs the same way they did in the past. In the worst case scenario of Nvidia not updating their drivers (or updating only the new one and not the legacy ones), what could be done to avoid the user to edit directly the xorg.conf file? Ciao, Free -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Prefer nvidia over nv when available
On Fri, Oct 05, 2007 at 09:38:38AM +0200, Free Ekanayaka wrote: Hi David, |--== David Nusinow writes: [...] DN The idea for the future is that all the drivers will export a symbol table DN of the PCI ID's they support. The server will scan them for drivers DN supporting the required PCI ID. My plan is to have them export an DN additional symbol table consisting of driver names that they override. So DN nvidia would export an override table with nv in it. Cool, pretty much like kernel some modules then. DN The notable thing about this is that it exists entirely outside the DN packaging system, so it's entirely up to upstream. That is a Good Thing :) DN In the case of the DN various nvidia drivers, if the legacy drivers are updated to include these DN symbols then they'll be automatically loaded if they're available. If not, DN then the server will load something else (nv if available, or an DN arch-specific fallback like vesa if not). DN So, if Nvidia decides to update their drivers, they'll get the benefits of DN this. Let's say that, in the best case scenario, that Nvidia updates both their new and legacy drivers (71xx,96xx). Still the relevant Debian packages can't be installed at same time (as they are now), so the proper nvidia driver sporting the proper PCI ID might not be available on the system. Is there a workaround for this? I have two related solutions in mind. One is that the server will ship a list of PCI ID's mapped to drivers itself. This list would allow the server to inform the user via a log what driver they would install. We could easily patch this to add the nvidia id's if we want. I don't know exactly what form this will take though. The second solution is to use discover. We're trying to get rid of it, but it's being repurposed for Debian to allow custom package installs for the hardware it's installed on. We may end up wanting to hook it in to d-i to allow the user to just install the driver they want on install. We could teach it about the nvidia legacy drivers. This is still more fantasy than reality, although I think they're good long-term goals to shoot for. For example in the Debian package for a legacy driver one could change the path of the file of the nvidia xorg driver, from: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so to /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv-96xx-.so so that the package doesn't conflict anymore with the other nvidia driver packages. Or other tricks like this one. Would this work/make sense? I'm not sure if this would work because the driver also ships its own version of the glx. If they require different glx's then they'd conflict. I don't know the details of the nvidia driver to say for sure though. DN The PCI ID symbol table thing already exists upstream in the xserver DN master branch, but the code to auto-load the driver based on it doesn't DN exist yet, but that's my goal for next week. In the worst-case scenario, DN Nvidia won't add the necessary symbols and users will just have to edit DN their xorg.confs the same way they did in the past. In the worst case scenario of Nvidia not updating their drivers (or updating only the new one and not the legacy ones), what could be done to avoid the user to edit directly the xorg.conf file? Well... I do have a set of patches currently in unstable that could theoretically handle this. Instead of relying on the module itself to carry the symbols, they use a flat text file list of PCI ID's. I was going to remove this system in favor of the symbols system, but I could leave it in place as a secondary fallback mechanism for just this sort of thing. Then you just have to have the package ship the text file and you're done. It might be worth doing, although the extra cruft just to support non-free drivers kind of sucks. I'll try to discuss it upstream and see what they think. - David Nusinow -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Prefer nvidia over nv when available
Hi David, |--== David Nusinow writes: DN On Mon, Oct 01, 2007 at 11:30:26PM +0200, Free Ekanayaka wrote: Hi all, is there a way to instruct the script(s) that generate the xorg.conf file at installation time to prefer nvidia over nv when the first is available? (and possibly to mark the proper packages for installation when not already installed). DN Not currently but it is definitely something I'm planning to do. Since I'm DN going to scrap that section of the debconfage soon, adding the feature DN there is pretty useless. The solution we currently have is a temporary one DN due to changes upstream, but I'll be implementing things upstream over the DN next few weeks, and I'll follow it up with this sort of feature so that DN nvidia can override nv by default when they're both installed (if the DN nvidia developers decide that's what they want anyway). Thanks. Just a few questions, if you already know the answer. Beside the regular nvidia-glx package and the relevant kernel module package would this mechanism also support the various other packages of the nvidia driver currently available in sid (e.g. legacy-71xx and legacy-96xx)? These different nvidia packages conflict with each other, so it might happen that the correct nvidia package is not installed by the time the xorg packages run their debconf script. How would this situation be handled? Ciao! Free -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Prefer nvidia over nv when available
On Wed, Oct 03, 2007 at 11:08:29AM +0200, Free Ekanayaka wrote: Hi David, |--== David Nusinow writes: DN On Mon, Oct 01, 2007 at 11:30:26PM +0200, Free Ekanayaka wrote: Hi all, is there a way to instruct the script(s) that generate the xorg.conf file at installation time to prefer nvidia over nv when the first is available? (and possibly to mark the proper packages for installation when not already installed). DN Not currently but it is definitely something I'm planning to do. Since I'm DN going to scrap that section of the debconfage soon, adding the feature DN there is pretty useless. The solution we currently have is a temporary one DN due to changes upstream, but I'll be implementing things upstream over the DN next few weeks, and I'll follow it up with this sort of feature so that DN nvidia can override nv by default when they're both installed (if the DN nvidia developers decide that's what they want anyway). Thanks. Just a few questions, if you already know the answer. Beside the regular nvidia-glx package and the relevant kernel module package would this mechanism also support the various other packages of the nvidia driver currently available in sid (e.g. legacy-71xx and legacy-96xx)? These different nvidia packages conflict with each other, so it might happen that the correct nvidia package is not installed by the time the xorg packages run their debconf script. How would this situation be handled? The idea for the future is that all the drivers will export a symbol table of the PCI ID's they support. The server will scan them for drivers supporting the required PCI ID. My plan is to have them export an additional symbol table consisting of driver names that they override. So nvidia would export an override table with nv in it. The notable thing about this is that it exists entirely outside the packaging system, so it's entirely up to upstream. In the case of the various nvidia drivers, if the legacy drivers are updated to include these symbols then they'll be automatically loaded if they're available. If not, then the server will load something else (nv if available, or an arch-specific fallback like vesa if not). So, if Nvidia decides to update their drivers, they'll get the benefits of this. The PCI ID symbol table thing already exists upstream in the xserver master branch, but the code to auto-load the driver based on it doesn't exist yet, but that's my goal for next week. In the worst-case scenario, Nvidia won't add the necessary symbols and users will just have to edit their xorg.confs the same way they did in the past. - David Nusinow -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Prefer nvidia over nv when available
On Mon, Oct 01, 2007 at 11:30:26PM +0200, Free Ekanayaka wrote: Hi all, is there a way to instruct the script(s) that generate the xorg.conf file at installation time to prefer nvidia over nv when the first is available? (and possibly to mark the proper packages for installation when not already installed). Not currently but it is definitely something I'm planning to do. Since I'm going to scrap that section of the debconfage soon, adding the feature there is pretty useless. The solution we currently have is a temporary one due to changes upstream, but I'll be implementing things upstream over the next few weeks, and I'll follow it up with this sort of feature so that nvidia can override nv by default when they're both installed (if the nvidia developers decide that's what they want anyway). - David Nusinow -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
