On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 6:58 PM, Kevin Ross<ke...@familyross.net> wrote: >> From: Patrick Wiseman [mailto:pwise...@gmail.com] >> Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 3:49 PM >> >> On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 6:38 PM, Boyd Stephen Smith >> Jr.<b...@iguanasuicide.net> wrote: >> > On Wednesday 26 August 2009 16:52:06 Jeff H. wrote: >> >> Been thinking of switching to Debian. Does it support Nvidia laptop >> cards? >> > >> > The "nv" X11 driver is in the Offical Free-Software-Only Debian >> package >> > repository. I think the "nouveau" X11 driver is also being packaged >> by a DD >> > but is not in, or scheduled to be in any release of Debian. >> > >> > The "nvidia" X11 driver and the kernel module of the same name are >> part of the >> > non-free repository. These packages are second-class citizens; their >> closed- >> > source nature makes it impossible to resolve non-packaging issues >> within >> > Debian. >> > >> > Packages in Official Stable Debian do not get upgraded to new version >> from >> > upstream, so it will not include the latest release from NVidia. In >> addition, >> > the kernel module is not always kept in sync with the latest kernel, >> so you >> > may need to compile that yourself. There are helper scripts and >> source >> > packages available. >> >> While this used to be the case, I think it is no longer so (although >> I'm on testing, not stable). There is now a package for the nividia >> kernel and module which keeps everything in sync; I have not had to >> recompile the kernel to catch up with the nvidia module in a very long >> time. And it works very nicely. >> >> Patrick > > Only the legacy 173.xx kernel module is in non-free, even in Sid. If you > want the new 185.xx series, like for VDPAU for hardware-accelerated video > playback, you still need to do it the hard way, which still isn't very hard.
I was unaware of that. I'm not sure I need the extra functionality, but it's nice to know it's there in case. Patrick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
