Re: No graphical environment with nvidia after upgrade to Trixie 13.2 due to not-installed linux headers package
Hi David, Max,
> You may be able to discover how this happened by zgrepping
> linux-headers-amd64 in /var/log/apt/history.log* and
> examining any files that match.
Here's an excerpt:
Start-Date: 2025-09-25 12:25:02
Commandline: apt autoremove
Requested-By: matthew (1000)
Remove: ..., linux-headers-amd64:amd64 (6.12.48-1), ...
End-Date: 2025-09-25 12:27:31
I run autoremove manually periodically, and linux-headers-amd64 was included in this one. I didn't notice the removal of this package when skimming the "to be removed" list or realize the impact of removing it at the time.
> If you were following <https://www.debian.org/releases/trixie/release-notes/upgrading.en.html>
For the record, I was not. Except for upgrading to a new stable release, I generally just run the apt commands without checking any release notes. I assume this is how most people approach it.
Also, I checked my notes for when I originally setup Nvidia drivers on this computer, back in October 2020. My notes mention installing some nvidia-... packages, but nothing about installing linux-headers-amd64. My main sources of information at the time were the Debian Steam wiki page (https://wiki.debian.org/Steam) and the Debian Nvidia wiki page (https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers). Checking the Nvidia wiki page now, I see that it explicitly mentions to install linux-headers-amd64. Checking the history, I see that back in October 2020 this was also mentioned. So I'm not sure if I originally installed linux-headers-amd64, or it was pulled in as a dependency. My understanding is that apt autoremove will never remove packages that were manually installed, so I assume it was originally pulled in as a dependency.
For this specific use case, I believe that making linux-headers-amd64 a dependency would be more user friendly. But given that the wiki page mentions installing it, that should be sufficient. Since I suspect that most people trying to setup Nvidia drivers on Debian will need the wiki page to get started.
Cheers,
Matthew
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