Re: [gentoo-user] "nvidia-drivers" ebuild?

[Donnie Berkholz]

Alan E. Davis wrote:
> I haven't noticed this ebuild before.  I am seeing a new ebuild in
>
>   /usr/portage/x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers
>
> Can someone explain this?  I can only hope this is the end of a long
> and troubling issue with xorg and nvidia-kernel.  ????  I fear not,
> however: (I am running with ~amd64)

The nvidia driver maintainers decided to switch them to a single ebuild,
since it matches how they're distributed and makes a number of issues
easier related to maintainance, FreeBSD drivers and, for users, version
mismatches between kernel module and userland driver.

Also note the new nvidia-legacy-drivers package for older cards, so you
don't need to fiddle around with package.mask anymore.

> |  RDEPEND="kernel_linux? ( virtual/modutils |
> |         || ( x11-base/xorg-server virtual/x11 |
> |         !>=x11-base/xorg-server-1.0.99
> |         || ( media-libs/mesa virtual/x11 )
> |         app-admin/eselect-opengl
> |         kernel_linux? ( !media-video/nvidia-kernel )
> |         kernel_FreeBSD? ( !media-video/nvidia-freebsd )
> |         !app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-nvidia
> |         !x11-drivers/nvidia-legacy-drivers
> |         !media-video/nvidia-glx"
>
> Maybe I just didn't notice this before?  I think not, however.  I have
> found a couple of messages on the forum referring to nvidia-drivers as
> a new replacement (??) for nvidia-kernel/nvidia-glx.  Does this mean a
> major xorg downgrade?

No binary drivers currently exist for use with xorg 7.1, so you'll need
to downgrade xorg-server to 1.0.x and any drivers (`emerge portage-utils
&& qlist -I x11-drivers/`) if you want binary drivers. That's what's
holding 7.1 from being marked stable on x86 and amd64.

> I have nvidia drivers and glx working pretty well, with only very
> minimal redrawing issues maybe two or three times over the last 24
> hours.  Should one avoid any upgrade, or what?  If so, HOW?

Uninstall nvidia-* and install nvidia-drivers.

Thanks,
Donnie