Re: Nouveau on Quadro K2200, killed?

Boyan Penkov composed on 2026-06-20 14:38 (UTC-0400):

> On Fri, Jun 19, 2026 at 10:00 AM Felix Miata wrote:

>> Try purging xserver-xorg-video-nouveau (upstream name xf86-video-nouveau), which
>> provides the reverse-engineered, old technology, "experimental", nouveau Xorg
>> display driver. Removal will allow use of the newer technology default display
>> driver "modesetting", as shown by inxi below in Trixie and my K2200.

> Super -- thanks kindly for the suggestion!  It was indeed installed
> automatically, as a dependecy of xserver-xorg-video-all, which we
> might want to re-evaluate.

xserver-xorg-video-all installs all GPU-specific drivers by default because the
modesetting driver doesn't support various antiques that the OS still supports.
Still, such antiques are so very old now that the time for dropping their support
from /standard/ installations xserver-xorg-video-all may have come.

>>   Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.16 compositor: Twin v: 3.0 driver: X:
>>     loaded: modesetting...

> Interestingly, even before above, I was in modesetting, so I'm not
> sure here, but will keep an eye out...

There may be some installation algorithm that notes GPU and then includes
something buried in either the /usr/ tree or /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ that precludes
use of the old driver in favor of modesetting. When modesetting works for the GPU
present, there's no compelling need for any of the drivers xserver-xorg-video-all
installs. xserver-xorg-video-vesa and xserver-xorg-video-fbdev may be worth
having, but only as fallbacks in case something has broken modesetting and a crude
fallback is acceptable or required for making repairs.