2.6.29 Debian is breaking NVIDIA (and other kernel module packages)

[compchemist]

I just ran across a set of patches made by Len Sorensen:

http://lists.alioth.debian.org/piper...il/001254.html

Those may or may not be of help to you - I am posting the link here just in case. Thanks for your time and consideration!

[Stendall]

Tonight i've downloaded and compiled the 2.6.30 RC1 kernel from kernel.org.
In the first boot after that, launched the Nvidia installer, 180.44 for amd64 (the last stable release at this moment) to found the same problem you guys are talking about.
Looked up to the origin of the problem:

commit cf2f7d7c90279cdbc12429de278f3d27ac2050ae
Merge: 53d8f67 a9caa3d
Author: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Mon Mar 30 16:06:04 2009 -0700

Merge branch 'proc-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/adobriyan/proc

* 'proc-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/adobriyan/proc:
Revert "proc: revert /proc/uptime to ->read_proc hook"
proc 2/2: remove struct proc_dir_entry:: owner <---- This is the culprit
proc 1/2: do PDE usecounting even for ->read_proc, ->write_proc
proc: fix sparse warnings in pagemap_read()
proc: move fs/proc/inode-alloc.txt comment into a source file

Just commented the lines and running, matter of minutes.

The point is, what has to do Debian with this, it's a very simple change in one file in the kernel tree.
In Debian the linux-image-2.6.29 it's in... unstable.
So guys, less complain (to Nvidia and Debian) and learn to carry on in a unstable branch, or get back to something more stable if you find this too challenging.

BTW, with the last stable vanilla kernel, the last stable Nvidia driver compile an runs w/o bigger problem?.
Fine, that is what has to be supported.

[dk75]

But if unstable branch bugs isn't complained ( reported ) then how it will resolve in next stable?

[microcris]

Originally Posted by compchemist

I just ran across a set of patches made by Len Sorensen:

http://lists.alioth.debian.org/piper...il/001254.html

Those may or may not be of help to you - I am posting the link here just in case. Thanks for your time and consideration!

How do you apply the patch?

I made this:

Created a directory to put what was needed
cd to that directory
apt-get source nvidia-kernel-source
patch -p0 < attachment-0004.patch
cd nvidia-graphics-drivers-180.29/
dch -i (to change version)
dpkg-checkbuilddeps
dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc
cd ..
sudo m-a prepare
sudo dpkg -i nvidia-kernel-source_180.29-1~test.1_amd64.deb
sudo m-a a-i nvidia-kernel-source
and the nvidia module still fails to compile

[upstaked]

Originally Posted by microcris

How do you apply the patch?

I made this:
[...]

The patch is against the source package; you'll need deb-src .. unstable non-free in your sources.list.

cd /tmp/
apt-get source nvidia-kernel-source
patch -p0 < attachment-0004.patch
# this failed for me in nvidia-graphics-drivers-180.29/debian/rules
# i edited the file manually end added this at line 96: (remove the #, of course)
#cp -a $(CURDIR)/debian.binary/control.template $(CURDIR)/debian/temp/modules/nvidia-kernel$(LEGACY)/debian/control
cd nvidia-graphics-drivers-180.29/
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b
cd ..
sudo dpkg -i nvidia-kernel-source_180.29-1_amd64.deb
# you can install the created nvidia-glx as well, it will get auto-configured after installing the module
sudo m-a build nvidia-kernel
sudo dpkg -i /usr/src/nvidia-kernel-2.6.29*.deb
# if you didn't install nvidia-kernel-common already, and get an error:
sudo apt-get install -f

[gavron]

Looks like this post from four days ago addresses 2.6.29, 2.6.30-rc1, etc.
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show...53&postcount=5

Ehud

[JackieBrown]

Originally Posted by Stendall

In Debian the linux-image-2.6.29 it's in... unstable.
So guys, less complain (to Nvidia and Debian) and learn to carry on in a unstable branch, or get back to something more stable if you find this too challenging.

I don't think you understand what the unstable branch is in Debian.

[mdriftmeyer]

I may be missing something, but I haven't touched 2.6.29 Debian because I use OpenVZ and I haven't seen openvz for 2.6.29 added in the tree.

Staying on 2.6.26 doesn't bother me.

[microcris]

Originally Posted by upstaked

patch -p0 < attachment-0004.patch
# this failed for me in nvidia-graphics-drivers-180.29/debian/rules
# i edited the file manually end added this at line 96: (remove the #, of course)
[...]

Thanks upstaked

I had the same issue with the patch but I changed it a little bit and it applied correctly.
It seems the package I build was correctly built and patched but I was unable to make m-a a-i nvidia-kernel-source.
It gave me this error

install: cannot stat `/usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel/nvidia.ko': No such file or directory

Now, the nvidia 180.44-1 are available in debian repository. I tried install it and it gave me the same error

install: cannot stat `/usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel/nvidia.ko': No such file or directory

I even tried this

Build manually, with a stock kernel
Use this method if you're running a stock kernel and the two first methods failed. module-assistant should automate this process. In other words, if the first method failed but this one works, you should probably submit a bug report against module-assistant.

The following procedure is adapted from the instructions in /usr/share/doc/nvidia-kernel-source/README.Debian and is known to be potentially inexact.

Save the release number of your kernel (e.g. 2.4.27-2-k7 or 2.6.8-1-686) in a couple of environment variables:
export KVERS=$(uname -r)
export KSRC=/usr/src/linux-headers-$KVERSNote that these variables are used by the build commands below, so you really do need to set and export them, as in the above commands.
Install the kernel module source: run
apt-get install nvidia-kernel-source nvidia-kernel-common
This will give you a source tarball /usr/src/nvidia-kernel-source.tar.bz2.
Unpack it with
cd /usr/src
tar -vxjpf nvidia-kernel-source.tar.bz2
This will unpack the kernel module sources into /usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel.
Install the header files for your kernel:
apt-get install linux-headers-$KVERS
This will give you kernel header files in /usr/src/linux-headers-$KVERS.
Be sure to check that the installed kernel image and kernel header packages have the same version number: run
apt-cache policy kernel-image-$KVERS linux-headers-$KVERSand
check that the version number listed as Installed is the same for both packages. If it isn't, find the distribution that has the version of linux-headers that you need, e.g. testing, and rerun the above installation command, adding '-t testing' (or whichever).
Build the kernel module package:
cd /usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel
debian/rules binary_modules

and the result was the same

install: cannot stat `/usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel/nvidia.ko': No such file or directory

Note:This is the first time I try to install the driver by the debian way. Usually I install it using the nvidia installer and in that way I have no problem...

[Fackamato]

For what it's worth, the latest git kernel works fine with 185.19 with this patch applied to the nvidia driver: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show...53&postcount=5

nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
nvidia 0000:01:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
nvidia 0000:01:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module  185.19  Sat Apr  4 07:04:57 PST 2009
fackamato@fackamato-pc ~ $ uname -a
Linux fackamato-pc 2.6.30-rc1-git-20090412 #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Apr 12 21:30:24 IST 2009 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T8300 @ 2.40GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

[JackieBrown]

The fix for the debian packages are in svn

svn://svn.debian.org/pkg-nvidia/packages/nvidia-graphics-drivers/trunk