[elrepo] NVIDIA is dropping support for G8xx, G9xx and GT2xx chipsets

Phil Perry phil at elrepo.org
Wed Dec 17 07:03:51 EST 2014


On 23/09/14 22:22, Phil Perry wrote:
> On 23/09/14 22:01, Steve Cleveland wrote:
>> I just want to chime in and let you all know how much I appreciate the
>> work you do on this.  nVidia doesn't make things easy in this regard.
>>
>> I like your approach to this point.  It would be great to have some time
>> in testing with an updated nvidia-detect and the new driver release when
>> it's available.  I'm not sure I have any newer hardware at this point,
>> but I can probably get something to test with.
>>
>>  - Steve
>>
> 
> Hi Steve,
> 
> Top priority will be to get an updated version of nvidia-detect out the
> door that handles the new driver versions.
> 
> We will then look to get the new driver released but initially that can
> go into the testing repository. Provided there are no critical security
> issues I'm quite happy to delay the driver release for a few days / week
> to allow us time to raise awareness. We have a LOT of users of the
> nvidia package and very few are subscribed to this list so the potential
> impact is large.
> 
> At some point we will need to migrate the current 340.xx driver release
> to a legacy package. We could do that now, publicize the fact and try to
> get as many potentially affected users as possible switched over now
> before the new long term driver release happens.
> 
> 

Hi Steve, all,

NVIDIA still hasn't updated the Long Lived driver branch and we've been
guilty of kicking our heels a bit too, but I'm pleased to announce we
now have everything in place to help users through this transition.

Just to recap, The current Long Lived driver (currently 340.65) will be
the last to support G8xxx, G9xxx and GT2xx chipsets. So users with
hardware based on these chipsets will not be able to update to future
driver releases.

Elrepo's solution to this is to make a legacy driver release based
around the 340.xx branch, which NVIDIA intends to support until the end
of 2019.

Legacy driver packages for 340.65 are now available in the
elrepo-testing repositories for all distro/architectures:

kmod-nvidia-340xx-340.65-1.el{5,6,7).elrepo
nvidia-x11-drv-340xx-340.65-1.el{5,6,7).elrepo

Note the packages are named kmod-nvidia-340xx and nvidia-x11-drv-340xx,
respectively. Other than the package name change (e.g, from kmod-nvidia
to kmod-nvidia-340xx), these packages are otherwise identical to the
current 340.65 driver release packages.

I've performed some minimal testing to ensure they install cleanly and
the system boots with the new driver packages. To install, I first
uninstalled the current nvidia drivers and then installed the new driver
packages. A reboot is then required, so:

yum erase kmod-nvidia
yum --enablerepo=elrepo-testing install kmod-nvidia-340xx

and reboot the system.

The other part of the puzzle is a new version of nvidia-detect which is
also available in the testing repository:

nvidia-detect-343.36-1.el{5,6,7}.elrepo

Please update/install with:

yum --enablerepo=elrepo-testing update nvidia-detect

This version of nvidia-detect is aware of the new 340.xx legacy driver
packages and will recommend that driver if your hardware is no longer
supported by the newer NVIDIA drivers. For example:

[phil at rhel7 ~]$ nvidia-detect
Probing for supported NVIDIA devices...
[10de:0ca3] NVIDIA Corporation GT215 [GeForce GT 240]
This device requires the legacy 340.xx NVIDIA driver kmod-nvidia-340xx


So we recommend users take the following action:

1. Update nvidia-detect to v343.36-1 from the testing repo.

2. Run nvidia-detect.

2a. If nvidia-detect recommends the kmod-nvidia-340xx package you should
uninstall kmod-nvidia and install kmod-nvidia-340xx (currently in the
testing repo) and reboot.

2b. If nvidia-detect recommends the current (343.36) kmod-nvidia driver
then you need take no action - your hardware will still be supported by
the latest driver branch and you may continue to update normally. Please
note the current Long Lived driver is currently v340.65 so ignore the
343.xx version number for now.


As always we'd welcome feedback / comments from users. Once these
packages have been tested by a few more people I anticipate moving them
from testing to the main repo as they work as expected for me.








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