I submitted 2 bugs after an upgrade of installed nvidia driver 275.05.07 on
wheezy caused the X server to freeze:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=642497
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=650861
After an apt-get upgrade the nvidia driver never worked properly again, causing
the X server to lock up
("EQ overflowing. The server is probably stuck in an infinite loop"), although
generally the PC was
accessible via ssh.
This happened with several OpenGL applications (/usr/lib/xscreensaver/endgame,
googleearth) but was
most noticeable with fgfs from flightgear; then it would take only a few
seconds to reproduce the problem.
After many tries reinstalling debian and the driver, I was able to make the
290.10 driver work perfectly
and believe the problems were caused by the upgrade, not the upstream software.
I followed the instructions
in http://tinyplanet.ca/~lsorense/debian/debian-nvidia-dri-howto.html (debian
nvidia driver howto), which
can be summarized as:
1. apt-get install linux-image-686-pae linux-headers-686-pae
- check that the versions for image and headers are exactly the same
- if the image differs from the one currently running, REBOOT
2. apt-get install nvidia-kernel-dkms
- will require a REBOOT if nouveau driver is present
3. apt-get install nvidia-glx nvidia-xconfig xserver-xorg libgl1-nvdia-glx
- REBOOT
This worked on two different computers and in both cases the nouveau driver was
still installed.
However, the usual debian approaches to installing a package did not work:
- apt-get install nvidia-glx
- dpkg --set-selections < <selections from working PC> ; apt-get
dselect-upgrade
During one of the attempts to reinstall I found the following situation:
root@berkeley:/home/jack# cat /proc/version
Linux version 3.1.0-1-686-pae (Debian 3.1.6-1) (wa...@debian.org) (gcc
version 4.6.2 (Debian 4.6.2-4) ) #1 SMP Fri Dec 23 19:59:41 UTC 2011
ii linux-headers-3.1.0-1-686-pae 3.1.8-2 << Header
files for Linux 3.1.0-1-686-pae
ii linux-headers-3.1.0-1-common 3.1.8-2 << Common
header files for Linux 3.1.0-1
Although the apt-get install nvidia-kernel-dkms succeeded without printing any
warnings, note that the
linux-headers version does NOT match the kernel image. It is hard to see how
dkms could build a valid
kernel module in such a case.
nvidia-kernel-dkms does not have a pre-install script but I think it would be
useful to have one
that exits with an error if the linux-headers don't match exactly the version
of the kernel, as
this would alert the user to the source of the error.
Also, the debian forums thread
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=65738 claims the nvidia driver
wiki
is out of date. It would be very helpful to include the nvidia driver howto
above, as it was updated
in May, 2011. It worked for my installs without a problem.
I recommend closing out these two bugs as being caused only by an incorrect
install procedure on my part.
thanks,
--jack
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