Re: [gentoo-user] custom kernel with nvidia-drivers

[Daniel Frey]

On 02/14/2017 02:33 AM, Raffaele Belardi wrote:
> Time ago when I upgraded nvidia-drivers from 295 to 3xx series there was
> no way to start X, it would crash immediately with my custom built
> kernel. After many tests I switched to a kernel config taken from a live
> CD which worked (and still works) fine with the 3xx nvidia-drivers but
> pulls in a lot of stuff don't think I really need. I started to remove
> kernel options one by one to go back to a custom kernel but that is a
> painful road.
>
> Is there a minimal set of kernel options required to run the
> nvidia-driver documented somewhere? The gentoo wiki suggests to remove
> framebuffer, DRM, noveau but apparently that is not sufficient.
>
> The current graphic board is a GTX750-based, if it matters.
>
> thanks,
>
> raffaele
>

I have:

 [IP-] [  ] x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-375.26:0/375

installed with no issues with my custom kernel (I've been using custom
kernels from day one using Gentoo.)

I have only enabled drivers for this specific machine and I didn't have
issues with X. I did forget to remove KMS support from the kernel
(nvidia provides their own KMS blob, apparently) and that give me issues
with framebuffer corruption at the console, but X itself worked fine.

All you can do is check `lspci -k`, `lsusb`, and dmesg output and figure
out what your kernel needs for your machine.

Or in the case you get to the point where X won't start attach the Xorg
log and the kernel .config, so that it can be looked at.

With new hardware I find it easier to boot a liveCD and save its dmesg,
lspci, lsusb to a USB key and use hits from it to build my own kernel,
removing all the bits not needed.

Dan