nvidia mess, Re: Is there a kernel update for SL 6.2 coming up soon?
On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 06:32:10PM +, Alan Bartlett wrote: > > "It seems jdow has screwed up." > I am not buying this. I shall bite the hand that feeds me and elaborate. Look at it from my side. As a small part of my job, I manage 20-30 machines with random ATI and NVIDIA video cards. I love ELREPO and I install the nvidia drivers the usual way: yum install elrepo-release; yum install nvidia-driver-blah; reboot, everything works great. Then on a nice sunny day, I read the post by jdow about elrepo having pushed out drivers with support for her video card removed, and she is clearly unhappy about it (who would be happy?). Well, bad things happen to good people, could happen even to me, right? But wait, it did happen to me just now. These new drivers have been pushed into every one of my computers! Some of them have a supported video card, some not, but in any case, now I have to deal with this, happy or not. So where is here my fault, where is here jdow's fault? We did not do anything and our computers are broken now and we have to spend time fixing them. Before assigning the blame, let me list the evident problems: 1) "yum install elrepo-release" enables automatic updates from the repository, so any updated packages will be installed automatically. (elrepo-release-6-5.el6, [elrepo] "enabled=1"). 2) nvidia removes support for some video cards from their driver 3) nvidia and elrepo make a mess of the information on which cards are supported by which drivers. Quickly, GeForce210 is supported by which driver? Hint: http://elrepo.org/tiki/kmod-nvidia does not have a link to a list of supported cards. 4) elrepo pushes out the new driver under the old name, messing up all the "unlucky" machines. 5) elrepo tells us "but you should have followed our mailing lists and converted those machine to the legacy driver, we gave you N days to do so!" (even if you are on vacation, or busy with another project, or have the affected machines in inaccessible locations). Without assigning blame, I can suggest some solutions: a) "yum install elrepo-release" should have automatic updates disabled, for nvidia drivers or for all packages (through yum-autoupdate magic, through "enabled=0", whatever). b) elrepo should have used a different name for the new incompatible driver (kmod-nvidia-310). c) elrepo should add a big warning "any future update of this driver may remove support for your video card, please follow our mailing lists closely" in http://elrepo.org/tiki/kmod-nvidia. As it stands now, I cannot even tell from the available documentation which driver I should be using for the GeForce210 cards I have on most machines. What a mess. -- Konstantin Olchanski Data Acquisition Systems: The Bytes Must Flow! Email: olchansk-at-triumf-dot-ca Snail mail: 4004 Wesbrook Mall, TRIUMF, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 2A3, Canada
Re: nvidia mess, Re: Is there a kernel update for SL 6.2 coming up soon?
On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 12:19:14PM -0800, Konstantin Olchanski wrote: > > 3) nvidia and elrepo make a mess of the information on which cards are > supported by which drivers. > To elaborate: http://elrepo.org/tiki/kmod-nvidia The grand total of information on supported video cards is this: Supported Chipsets This driver is the current release and supports the most recent NVIDIA graphics cards (GeForce 8 series GPUs onwards, as well as Quadro series). Users of cards based on older chipsets should use one of the following legacy drivers. This is not helpful information. GeForce210 cards I bought in December are "recent" or not? Are they "8 series and onward" or not? They are not listed in the legacy lists, is it an omission or have I dodged a bullet today or not? -- Konstantin Olchanski Data Acquisition Systems: The Bytes Must Flow! Email: olchansk-at-triumf-dot-ca Snail mail: 4004 Wesbrook Mall, TRIUMF, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 2A3, Canada
Re: nvidia mess, Re: Is there a kernel update for SL 6.2 coming up soon?
On 2013/01/25 12:28, Konstantin Olchanski wrote:
On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 12:19:14PM -0800, Konstantin Olchanski wrote:
3) nvidia and elrepo make a mess of the information on which cards are
supported by which drivers.
To elaborate:
http://elrepo.org/tiki/kmod-nvidia
The grand total of information on supported video cards is this:
Supported Chipsets
This driver is the current release and supports the most recent NVIDIA graphics
cards (GeForce 8 series GPUs onwards, as well as Quadro series). Users of cards
based on older chipsets should use one of the following legacy drivers.
This is not helpful information. GeForce210 cards I bought in December are
"recent" or not? Are
they "8 series and onward" or not? They are not listed in the legacy lists, is
it an omission
or have I dodged a bullet today or not?
To a degree I can sympathize with the elrepo people. Nvidia has screwed up.
After getting disgusted with ATI I abandoned them for Nvidia. Now maybe I
need to figure out how good the support for Intel cards is these days.
But, still, the gentlemen at elrepo could have handled this a little more
gracefully, methinks. It's a shame they're stuck in the middle here. They
seem to be basically very good folks.
{^_^}
Re: nvidia mess, Re: Is there a kernel update for SL 6.2 coming up soon?
On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 12:57 PM, jdow wrote: > the gentlemen at elrepo . > They seem to be basically very good folks. s/basically// ;-) By the way there is more than "gentlemen" on the ELRepo team... but that's not important. Akemi
Re: nvidia mess, Re: Is there a kernel update for SL 6.2 coming up soon?
On 2013/01/25 13:04, Akemi Yagi wrote:
On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 12:57 PM, jdow wrote:
the gentlemen at elrepo .
They seem to be basically very good folks.
s/basically//
;-)
By the way there is more than "gentlemen" on the ELRepo team... but
that's not important.
Akemi
I had a strong suspicion that was the case. However, as used "Gentlemen"
was generic human based. I gave up on the "him/her" or "himer" kind of
nonsense about the time people started thinking it'd be a good idea. I
embraced it for all of a week, maybe. If you male guys want some good
male only pronouns and nouns go generate your own new ones for referring
to men. All the others are generic now.
As for the textual substitution I stick with the way I phrased it. Remember
that one "Aw S***!" wipes out 1000 attaboys.
{^_-}
Re: nvidia mess, Re: Is there a kernel update for SL 6.2 coming up soon?
On Jan 25, 2013, at 3:57 PM, jdow wrote: > To a degree I can sympathize with the elrepo people. Nvidia has screwed up. This is not the first time nvidia cards have gone 'legacy'. There are now three supported legacy nvidia driver versions (304.xx, 173.xx, and 96.xx). Prior to 310.xx, there were but two. > After getting disgusted with ATI I abandoned them for Nvidia. Now maybe I > need to figure out how good the support for Intel cards is these days. > Yeah, good luck with that. > But, still, the gentlemen at elrepo could have handled this a little more > gracefully, methinks. It's a shame they're stuck in the middle here. They > seem to be basically very good folks. > They handled it as gracefully as it could have been handled, since the heads-up was posted on the elrepo list quite a while ago. I do think that if one uses third party packages, one should follow at least the announcement lists for each such repo.
Re: nvidia mess, Re: Is there a kernel update for SL 6.2 coming up soon?
On 2013/01/25 13:31, Lamar Owen wrote:
On Jan 25, 2013, at 3:57 PM, jdow wrote:
To a degree I can sympathize with the elrepo people. Nvidia has screwed up.
This is not the first time nvidia cards have gone 'legacy'. There are now
three supported legacy nvidia driver versions (304.xx, 173.xx, and 96.xx).
Prior to 310.xx, there were but two.
After getting disgusted with ATI I abandoned them for Nvidia. Now maybe I
need to figure out how good the support for Intel cards is these days.
Yeah, good luck with that.
But, still, the gentlemen at elrepo could have handled this a little more
gracefully, methinks. It's a shame they're stuck in the middle here. They
seem to be basically very good folks.
They handled it as gracefully as it could have been handled, since the heads-up
was posted on the elrepo list quite a while ago. I do think that if one uses
third party packages, one should follow at least the announcement lists for
each such repo.
It seems there should have been some way to cozen yum into sending the
administrator email regarding the process that needs to be taken. Better
yet would be a test for cards gone legacy. This could be added to the
install for a 304.65 driver update that is basically the same as 304.64
with the addition of a test program.
In the post processing the test program is run.
At best that test program should setup a sequence of yum steps to remove
the newly installed 305 drivers and install the 304xx legacy drivers. I
suspect it would take fairly little script-fu to do either just the email
or the full reinstall magilla. For the emailing this line should work:
mail -v -s "Your Nvidia graphics card is going legacy" root /dev/null
Just install a batch file with that line and the "msg" text then run it
if the test program reports the board is unsupported. That message could
have the update script embedded within it for easy reinstallation.
{^_^}
Re: nvidia mess, Re: Is there a kernel update for SL 6.2 coming up soon?
On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 2:48 PM, jdow wrote: > It seems there should have been some way to cozen yum into sending the > administrator email regarding the process that needs to be taken. I ask once again that all elrepo-related talks be taken to the elrepo mailing list. The SL list is the place where SL-specific topics are handled. But more importantly, users who are concerned (this includes RHEL and CentOS users) can join the discussion on the elrepo M/L. In fact, there is already one post/idea by Nux: http://lists.elrepo.org/pipermail/elrepo/2013-January/001620.html And by now everyone is subscribed to the elrepo list, right? Right? Akemi
Re: nvidia mess, Re: Is there a kernel update for SL 6.2 coming up soon?
On 2013/01/25 15:04, Akemi Yagi wrote:
On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 2:48 PM, jdow wrote:
It seems there should have been some way to cozen yum into sending the
administrator email regarding the process that needs to be taken.
I ask once again that all elrepo-related talks be taken to the elrepo
mailing list. The SL list is the place where SL-specific topics are
handled. But more importantly, users who are concerned (this includes
RHEL and CentOS users) can join the discussion on the elrepo M/L. In
fact, there is already one post/idea by Nux:
http://lists.elrepo.org/pipermail/elrepo/2013-January/001620.html
And by now everyone is subscribed to the elrepo list, right? Right?
You ask too much, perhaps.
Akemi
{^_^}
Re: nvidia mess, Re: Is there a kernel update for SL 6.2 coming up soon?
It looks like Nux has it under control if people listen.
I figure there should be some people around ElRepo at least as smart
and clever as a roughly 70 year old woman who's too dumb to retire
and keeps pushing her work, which is not system administration. And
I figure at my age I've earned the right to be cranky.
(Or are you telling me old age and guile beat youth and enthusiasm
yet again.)
{^_-}
On 2013/01/25 15:04, Akemi Yagi wrote:
On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 2:48 PM, jdow wrote:
It seems there should have been some way to cozen yum into sending the
administrator email regarding the process that needs to be taken.
I ask once again that all elrepo-related talks be taken to the elrepo
mailing list. The SL list is the place where SL-specific topics are
handled. But more importantly, users who are concerned (this includes
RHEL and CentOS users) can join the discussion on the elrepo M/L. In
fact, there is already one post/idea by Nux:
http://lists.elrepo.org/pipermail/elrepo/2013-January/001620.html
And by now everyone is subscribed to the elrepo list, right? Right?
Akemi
Re: [SCIENTIFIC-LINUX-USERS] nvidia mess, Re: Is there a kernel update for SL 6.2 coming up soon?
On 01/25/2013 02:28 PM, Konstantin Olchanski wrote: On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 12:19:14PM -0800, Konstantin Olchanski wrote: 3) nvidia and elrepo make a mess of the information on which cards are supported by which drivers. To elaborate: http://elrepo.org/tiki/kmod-nvidia The grand total of information on supported video cards is this: Supported Chipsets This driver is the current release and supports the most recent NVIDIA graphics cards (GeForce 8 series GPUs onwards, as well as Quadro series). Users of cards based on older chipsets should use one of the following legacy drivers. This is not helpful information. GeForce210 cards I bought in December are "recent" or not? Are they "8 series and onward" or not? They are not listed in the legacy lists, is it an omission or have I dodged a bullet today or not? Nvidia has a helpful compatibility page (google result #2 for nvidia linux drivers): http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us Please don't hold the ELRepo folks accountable for changes NVidia makes. They are graciously donating their time to make these packages. Pat -- Pat Riehecky Scientific Linux Developer
Re: [SCIENTIFIC-LINUX-USERS] nvidia mess, Re: Is there a kernel update for SL 6.2 coming up soon?
On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 02:35:27PM -0600, Pat Riehecky wrote: > > Nvidia has a helpful compatibility page (google result #2 for nvidia > linux drivers): > > http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us > Not so helpful as to provide the actual list of supported products. Since I have nothing better to do today, I eventually found the actual list at: http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-amd64-310.32-driver.html By luck, it's the list for the same version of the driver as was helpfully pushed into my computers by elrepo: iris01:~$ rpm -q kmod-nvidia kmod-nvidia-310.32-1.el6.elrepo.x86_64 I vote to have it linked from http://elrepo.org/tiki/kmod-nvidia > > Please don't hold the ELRepo folks accountable for changes NVidia makes. > > They are graciously donating their time to make these packages. > Yes, as I said, one bites the hand that feeds us. Not the hand of the nice people where this yummy dogfood ultimately comes from. -- Konstantin Olchanski Data Acquisition Systems: The Bytes Must Flow! Email: olchansk-at-triumf-dot-ca Snail mail: 4004 Wesbrook Mall, TRIUMF, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 2A3, Canada
