Re: nvidia 9800 GT with nouveau on wheezy

On Wed, 24 Apr 2013, Hans-J. Ullrich wrote:

> Don't use the nvidia package from debian for googleearth. They do not work, as
> the 32-bit-libs of nvidia have dependency problems. Obviously no one cared for
> this at the moment.
>
> Just download the installer from the nvidia website and execute it - works
> like a charm!

yes, sure. Then relax as it hoses your system... I had to fix countless
workstations because someone had done exactly this. Then, sooner or later
(typically: sooner) one or another software upgrade conflicts with the many
files distributed by the nvidia installer throughout the system, without
registering them with the packaging system and no regard with debian
filesystem hierarchy guidelines. Cleaning up the resulting mess is quite 
a bit of work, when (not if) you will need to.

I have an alternative suggestion: if you really need recent, up to date
nvidia drivers, get the _source_ debian package from unstable. 
You can do this by adding a deb-src line pointing to unstable in your
/etc/apt/sources.list, or a file containing it in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/
(mind you: deb-src, not deb!).
Then you just do: apt-get source nvidia-glx
then you go into the newly created directory, read the
debian/README.source file and follow the instructions to create a clean
backport, resulting in proper deb packages that you can install.
The additional utilities (e.g. nvidia-kernel-common etc.) and scripts can 
be installed from the http://backports.debian.org repository matching your
installed distribution.
A bit more work to do, but this will be a long-term solution, easy to
maintain following upgrades, and it will not hose your system.

Just my 2¢...

Good luck, indeed!

Giacomo

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Giacomo Mulas <[email protected]>
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