Lennart Sorensen wrote:
Using the nvidia installer is a terrible idea in the long term. It overwrites files that the package system owns, and the package system will take them back someday, breaking the nvidia driver in the process. Just remember how broken windows tends to be. Then remeber windows allows all sorts of people to make 3rd party installers that overwrite system files in the install. Those two issues are related. Just say no to 3rd party installers.
Thanks for that, I am forewarned. However, my point was really about the newest driver working well with the newest kernels.
I am not a particular fan of nvidia, per se. (I would like to see them release some of their software as free and/or open sourece.)
3rd party installers are not as a category the problem; the problem is individual software developers not taking the time to do things right. This is a definite issue that Linux is going to have as long as there are different distributions. It is hard for someone to package up something for Redhat, SuSE, Slackware, Debian, and so on. Debian is a particular challenge for them, apparently.
I do not run my particular setup as a "production" system. It won't cost me much time or any productivity to have to fix it when things finally break. So, I don't have to wait for a Debian maintainer to get around to packaging up the solution to my current problem.
Your advice should definitely be heeded by someone who is more dependent on their machine being up most of the time. I will keep this in mind when giving out info or advice from here on.
Mark Allums