What package(s) are needed to install nvidia support ?

[John]

Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:

>On Tue, 14 Sep 2004, James Gregory wrote:
>
>  
>
>>On Tue, 2004-09-14 at 07:21 +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>On Tue, 14 Sep 2004, James Gregory wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Just on this, I expected that installing the packages would alter my X
>>>>config, like the livna packages for fedora. I was quite surprised when I
>>>>had to edit my X configuration (I was unaware that using the reconfigure
>>>>script would do that for me). I think the expectation for Joe User would
>>>>be that installing drivers makes the hardware work straight away.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>You will have to use dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86. Automaticaly
>>>altering X config is not a good idea at all. The is only one case over
>>>several in which i can do it, and hounestly it is more trouble than joy.
>>>      
>>>
>>Why do you believe that altering X config is a bad thing?
>>    
>>
>
>Several reasons:
>
>1) the config is complex. a simple sed will not work.
>  
>

Tougher for the user. To most users, time spend stuffing round with the 
system is time wasted, money lost.

>2) if you manually changed the config i can't change it.
>  
>
Most users don't.

>3) the config file belongs to another package that means duplicating all
>   the code to handle that config file into another package and keep them
>   in sync. plus it is not nice that package foo modifies package bar
>   configuration. That means introducing a question to ask the user.
>  
>

Change the other package to make it easier to make the configuration 
changes needed. You don't have to replicate the code at all.

>4) it adds another point of failure in the installation system.
>  
>
So? Better to get it right than to abandon a group of users. If you 
don't try, you won't get it right.

>5) the nvidia commercial drivers is not 100% configuration compatible with
>   the nv free driver. Speaking for my experience on my systems the nv
>   free driver can go to a higher resolution than the the commercial one.
>   This means that the behaviour of X will change and that's not what the
>   user expects.
>
>  
>
Package he X software to accomodate the alternatives.

>>Is it that you think it shouldn't be loaded upon installation or that
>>performing this loading is likely to cause other headaches?
>>    
>>
>
>It can and did cause headaches. The nvidia driver is splitted into kernel
>and userland module. First of all loading the kernel module will alter the
>kernel status (and it is known that was giving problems. see LKML for it).
>Second we don't want the machine to crash or start behaving weird due to a
>module that we have no sources and that we cannot fix. The user has to be
>conscious to do it at his own risk.
>  
>

Ensure they have an easy way out. Tell them, if a printer is configured 
offer to print out the instructions (the can't read them on the computer 
if it's dead).

Don't like my suggestions? Suggest something better _for the user._