[elrepo] Centos 7.6 nvidia issue

[Phil Perry]

On 04/12/2018 20:12, Ken Bass wrote:
> Hi all, I have a 7.5 system and yum just updated to 7.6. I am at a loss 
> on how to properly update the nvidia driver from elrepo.
> 
> Here is what is currently installed:
> 
> nvidia-x11-drv-390.87-1.el7_5.elrepo.x86_64
> nvidia-detect-410.78-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64
> yum-plugin-nvidia-1.0.2-1.el7.elrepo.noarch
> kmod-nvidia-390.87-1.el7_5.elrepo.x86_64
> 
> Yum update provides no suggestions - yum-plugin does blacklist some stuff.
> 
> I have a 'NVIDIA Corporation GF108 [GeForce GT 730]'.
> 

Hi Ken,

GF108 is a Fermi-based card (F=Fermi), and support for older Fermi-based 
hardware was dropped following the 390.xx release. The yum plugin is 
blacklisting the 410 series drivers on your system to prevent you 
updating to a driver version that does not support your hardware and 
breaking your system.

The confusion comes from the fact that not all GT730's are created 
equally. Some GT730 cards are based on older, now unsupported, 
Fermi-based hardware, whilst others are based on newer Kepler-based 
hardware. For example:

$ nvidia-detect -v
Probing for supported NVIDIA devices...
[10de:1287] NVIDIA Corporation GK208B [GeForce GT 730]
This device requires the current 410.78 NVIDIA driver kmod-nvidia

> 1) Looking at the elrepo, I see there is a 
> 'kmod-nvidia-390xx-390.87-2.el7_6.elrepo.x86_64.rpm'. However I do not 
> see a corresponding 'nvidia-x11-drv-390' for centos 7.6. Is this an 
> oversight or is there some other procedure I should be following?
> 

The matching Xorg driver is 
nvidia-x11-drv-390xx-390.87-1.el7_5.elrepo.x86_64. Only the kernel 
module needed rebuilding for el7.6

> 2) nvidia-detect prints 'kmod-nvidia-390xx'. Why only this version? The 
> nvidia website indicates 410 is compatible. Is this a bug in 
> nvidia-detect? I do see a 
> 'nvidia-x11-drv-410.78-2.el7_6.elrepo.x86_64.rpm' and 
> 'nvidia-x11-drv-libs-410.78-2.el7_6.elrepo.x86_64.rpm'.
> 

No, nvidia-detect is correct, upstream support for your card ended after 
the 390.xx series.

> 3) What is the purpose of the two 410 drv and drv-libs? I don't see that 
> for other versions. Is this a new packaging?
> 

The package was split to support the inclusion of libglvnd in el7.6

> 4) What is the proper method f upgrading to the 410 from the existing, 
> if that is okay?
> 

Uninstall your current kmod-nvidia and nvidia-x11-drv packages and 
replace with kmod-nvidia-390xx and nvidia-x11-drv-390xx packages. This 
way you will receive any security updates etc to the 390.xx driver branch.