ubuntu-x-swat team mailing list archive

[David Osguthorpe <djod38@xxxxxxxxx>]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: nvidia-glx-185


A fresh install of Ubuntu 9.10 followed by installing the nvidia proprietary nvidia-glx-185 extension
fails to activate GLX

This is a combination of the non-proprietary driver still being installed (xserver-xorg-video-nv) and no
xorg.conf created (a new feature in Karmic apparently).

Whatever logic is used to determine (most likely alphabetic or possibly directory) which driver loads
first in /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers loads the nv_drv.so driver first
- this is not compatible with the nvidia-glx extension - so the GLX extension is just dropped with only
an error in Xorg.0.log

This causes applications that need GLX to fail - which is where you
first discover the problem

Running nvidia-xconfig creates an xorg.conf which fixes the problem (which I needed because I was doing
the setup remotely via ssh) by defining the driver explicitly in the Device Section

This may be related to a number of issues reported with nvidia drivers and 9.10
- also the issue of dpkg-reconfigure doing nothing useful anymore which googling around my issue
came up a number of times - 

This was confusing because other upgrades to Karmic  I did had no such problem - because an existing xorg.conf
is retained across the upgrade - it is not deleted

Auto-loading Xorg modules needs to really figure out what to do about multiple modules providing the same
functionality (is there a file in the Xorg system which controls which modules to load like modprobe for the kernel?)
otherwise to use the nvidia binary drivers in Karmic requires an xorg.conf
or is using xorg.conf still the approved solution to choosing between drivers providing the same functionality

Im logging this in the hope it may help other people - I guess the other solution is for one of the nvidia proprietary
packages to run nvidia-xconfig post-installation

** Affects: nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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nvidia proprietary driver glx extension fails to load karmic
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/501984
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