No graphical environment with nvidia after upgrade to Trixie 13.2 due to not-installed linux headers package
Hi,
After upgrading to Trixie 13.2 and rebooting today (2025-11-16), my computer now boots into a command line ptty instead of the graphical desktop login screen. Issue seems to be due to "linux-headers-amd64" package being uninstalled at some point previously.
Since I've fixed my issue, I guess this is mostly a FYI for others. But this also feels like a bug: say a missing dependency from nvidia-drivers-bin or similar package on the kernel headers. If any package maintainers, developers, etc. agree and knows on which package I should submit a bug, I would be happy to help in submitting one.
Investigation details:
`startx` gave an error about the Xorg server not starting. The Xorg logfile mentioned nvidia and needing to check the kernel logs.
`journalctl -b` shows this (among a few other things):
Nov 16 20:36:21 dionysus systemd-modules-load[482]: modprobe: FATAL: Module nvidia-current not found in directory /lib/modules/6.12.57+deb13-amd64
...
Nov 16 20:36:21 dionysus systemd-modules-load[480]: modprobe: ERROR: Error running install command 'modprobe -i nvidia-current ' for module nvidia: retcode 1
Nov 16 20:36:21 dionysus systemd-modules-load[480]: modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'nvidia': Invalid argument
`dkms status` shows this:
nvidia-current/550.163.01, 6.1.0-40-amd64, x86_64: installed
nvidia-current/550.163.01, 6.12.48+deb13-amd64, x86_64: installed
`find /lib/modules/6.12.57+deb13-amd64 -iname '*nvidia*'` shows that the dkm is indeed missing:
/lib/modules/6.12.57+deb13-amd64/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/nvidia-wmi-ec-backlight.ko.xz
/lib/modules/6.12.57+deb13-amd64/kernel/drivers/usb/typec/altmodes/typec_nvidia.ko.xz
/lib/modules/6.12.57+deb13-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/nvidia
For comparison, here is `find /lib/modules/6.12.48+deb13-amd64/ -iname '*nvidia*'`, which includes the dkm:
/lib/modules/6.12.48+deb13-amd64/updates/dkms/nvidia-current-uvm.ko.xz
/lib/modules/6.12.48+deb13-amd64/updates/dkms/nvidia-current.ko.xz
/lib/modules/6.12.48+deb13-amd64/updates/dkms/nvidia-current-peermem.ko.xz
/lib/modules/6.12.48+deb13-amd64/updates/dkms/nvidia-current-modeset.ko.xz
/lib/modules/6.12.48+deb13-amd64/updates/dkms/nvidia-current-drm.ko.xz
/lib/modules/6.12.48+deb13-amd64/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/nvidia-wmi-ec-backlight.ko.xz
/lib/modules/6.12.48+deb13-amd64/kernel/drivers/usb/typec/altmodes/typec_nvidia.ko.xz
/lib/modules/6.12.48+deb13-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/nvidia
Rebooting and selecting kernel image 6.12.48 (the previous image I was using prior to upgrading) allowed the computer to boot into graphical environment.
As a quick test, I tried reinstalling "nvidia-driver-bin" with `sudo apt reinstall nvidia-driver-bin`, but this didn't seem to (re)compile any DKMs. I also tried reinstalling "linux-image-6.12.57+deb13-amd64," which included this message:
Automatic installation of modules for kernel 6.12.57+deb13-amd64 was skipped
since the kernel headers for this kernel do not seem to be installed.
`dpkg -l` shows that "linux-headers-6.12.48+deb13-{amd64,common}" are both installed, and none are installed for 6.12.57 kernel. It also shows that "linux-headers-amd64" was removed (status "rc.") I don't think I ever manually removed them, so it was likely removed by an automated upgrade / autoremove at some point.
Installing "inux-headers-amd64" installed the headers for 6.12.57, after which reinstalling the 6.12.57 kernel image built the nvidia DKM. At this point rebooting into the 6.12.57 kernel was OK and I got the graphical environment / login manager.
Cheers,
Matthew Todd
matthew@zerobitcoder.net
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