[Bug 1839756] Re: Nvidia driver options are not easy to understand

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

Hi mark, thanks for your report. We plan to improve this interface for
Ubuntu 19.10, as part of the inclusion of Nvidia drivers in the official
Ubuntu repositories.

I think the issue you are seeing, with a newer driver showing as
“tested” while an older one is not, is that the older one is what Nvidia
calls the “Long Lived” driver and the newer one the “Short Lived”, which
people choose depending on whether they want stability, compatibility
with the latest game updates, etc. So it’s not simply a case of “newer ×
tested” >> “older × untested”. When I designed the current UI, in
January 2012, that distinction had existed for only four months and I
wasn’t aware of it. Now, we’ll show Nvidia’s “Long Lived” and “Short
Lived” terminology in the GUI.

At the same time, as you suggested, we’ll drop technical wording that
doesn’t help you make a choice, like “metapackage” and “X.org X server”.

Here’s the new design:
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareAndUpdatesSettings#drivers>

** Changed in: software-properties (Ubuntu)
       Status: Invalid => Triaged

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1839756

Title:
  Nvidia driver options are not easy to understand

Status in software-properties package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  I have just upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04.3LTS, and the options I have for
  my nvidia driver are shown in the screenshot.

  I dont understand why I have the option for an older, untested version
  of the driver as well as the latest version. Also, the wording of
  these options is highly technical and not very meaningful to someone
  who just wants the latest driver.

  I would be better to have just 2 options, with labels more meaningful to the end user like:
  * Latest official Nvidia driver (proprietary)
  * Latest Nouveau driver (open source)

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
  Package: software-properties-gtk 0.96.24.32.9
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-55.60-generic 4.15.18
  Uname: Linux 4.15.0-55-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.7
  Architecture: amd64
  CurrentDesktop: XFCE
  Date: Sun Aug 11 13:32:43 2019
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-11-11 (1002 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 16.04.1 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160719)
  PackageArchitecture: all
  SourcePackage: software-properties
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to bionic on 2018-08-24 (351 days ago)

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