Re: Remove nvidia driver and reinstall nouveau

[Joe Riel <jriel@maplesoft.com>]

On Fri, 28 Jan 2011 18:02:50 +0100
Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de> wrote:

> On 2011-01-28 16:26 +0100, Joe Riel wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 28 Jan 2011 08:32:02 +0100
> > Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de> wrote:
> >
> >> On 2011-01-28 07:12 +0100, Joe Riel wrote:
> >> 
> >> > Is there a nice way to remove the nvidia driver and replace
> >> > it with the nouveau driver (which was originally installed 
> >> > with Debian squeeze)?  
> >> 
> >> If you have used the Debian packages in non-free, definitely.  If
> >> you have run NVidia's installer, I'm not so sure.  Which method
> >> did you choose?
> >
> > I used the Debian packages from non-free.  Presumably I'll need to 
> > purge those.
> 
> Removing them should suffice, since you have already taken out the
> blacklist entry that nvidia-kernel-common has installed.
> 
> > But do I also have to reconfigure/reinstall the
> > nouveau driver package?
> 
> No.
> 
> > Since the nvidia package installs a different
> > kernel, do I have to manually (via aptitude) install a new one, or
> > will aptitude know to do that?
> 
> Hm?  The nvidia packages do not install kernels, they only install
> _modules_ for your kernel(s).  Those should be harmless, since the
> nvidia module is not autoloaded unless you also use the nvidia X
> driver.

Thanks, I got confused by the name: nvidia-kernel-2.6.32-5-amd64.
I assumed that was a kernel rather than a kernel module.

> It seems that the packaging of the nvidia stuff has changed in the
> last ten months, and you need to remove the
> libgl{1,x}-nvidia-alternatives packages to restore
> the /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
> and /usr/lib/libGL.so.1 files that these packages divert.



-- 
Joe Riel