Re: occult nvidia kernel version skew

[hendrik@topoi.pooq.com]

On Mon, Jun 19, 2006 at 09:26:42AM -0400, hendrik@topoi.pooq.com wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 18, 2006 at 06:18:03PM -0400, hendrik@topoi.pooq.com wrote:
> > Guessing that my problems probably resulted from a faulty upgrade (and 
> > there was plenty of that in the xorg6.9->7.0 transition), my next step 
> > would seem to be to purge *all* nvidia-specific packages, remove their 
> > .debs from apt-cache, reconstruct the locate database, look for any 
> > remaining files with a reasonable facsimile of "nvidia" in their names 
> > and delete them, look for any stray files not part of any package and 
> > delete any that look suspicious, and then begin to install the stuff 
> > again from scratch, downloading .debs, compiling kernel modules, etc.
> 
> I have now purged every package that contains 'nvidia' as part of its 
> name, and cleared the apt-cache so that if I ever start installing such 
> packages I can be sure of getting a fresh download.
> 
> But I still find nvidia-related files:
> /lib/modules/2.6.12-1-amd64-generic/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia
> /lib/modules/2.6.12-1-amd64-generic/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia/nvidiafb.ko
> /lib/modules/2.6.15-1-amd64-generic/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia
> /lib/modules/2.6.15-1-amd64-generic/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia/nvidiafb.ko
> 
> These should have vanished when I purged 
> nvidia-kernel-2.6.12-1-amd64-generic and the corresponding package for 
> 2.6.15, shouldn't they have?
> 
> Can I delete them?  I am desperately trying to clean everything out 
> before I start a reinstall.
> 
> The nvidia-kernel-2.6.15... package has disappeared from aptitude's list 
> of packages, by the way, but nvidia-kernel-2.6.12-1-amd64-generic is 
> still in the list, marked 'p  S' as purged but (I presume) from a 
> suspicious source.
> 
> 
> There;s also a lot of nvidia stuff in /usr/src/linus-headers...
> 
> /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.12-1-amd64-generic/include/config/fb/nvidia
> /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.12-1-amd64-generic/include/config/fb/nvidia/i2c.h
> /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.12-1-amd64-generic/include/config/fb/nvidia/module.h
> /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.12-1/drivers/video/nvidia
> /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.12-1/drivers/video/nvidia/Makefile
> /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.15-1-amd64-generic/include/config/fb/nvidia
> /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.15-1-amd64-generic/include/config/fb/nvidia/i2c.h
> /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.15-1-amd64-generic/include/config/fb/nvidia/module.h
> /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.15-1/drivers/video/nvidia
> /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.15-1/drivers/video/nvidia/Makefile
> 
> and a huge file tree under /usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel
> 
> Can I just delete all this /usr/src stuff?

Well, I did, and the system still boots.  Now, when it tries to start X 
it complains that there isn't any nvidia driver, rather than that the 
avaliable driver has an inconsistent version.

Now is the time to start installing again.

-- hendrik