Bug#578026: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: should not migrate to testing before linux-2.6
On 2010-04-19 20:37 +0200, Julien Cristau wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 09:40:05 +0200, Sven Joachim wrote:
>
>> Package: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
>> Version: 1:0.0.15+git20100329+7858345-3
>> Severity: serious
>>
>> This package needs the nouveau.ko kernel module which is not available
>> in Squeeze kernels. It must not migrate to testing until a suitable
>> linux-2.6 (and preferably linux-latest-2.6) version is in place.
>>
> One argument here is that this only matters when
> 1) the kernel autoloads nouveau.ko on boot, which it doesn't yet
The kernel team has enabled that in svn¹.
> 2) the X server selects nouveau_drv.so by default for nvidia hw, which
> it doesn't either
So you are saying: "It does not really matter that the package is
unusable, because it isn't used by default." Interesting point of view,
but not quite in the spirit of http://www.debian.org/devel/testing, I am
afraid.
> If nouveau gets to testing first, then we can add it as a dependency of
> xserver-xorg-video-all, and then later do the above autoloading dance
> without worrying too much that the nouveau X driver might not be
> installed.
The latter cannot be guaranteed in any case, so absence of nouveau has
to be handled gracefully anyway. A more interesting question is what
happens if the nouveau X driver is there but the kernel does not have
the module or has an incompatible version.
> What do you think?
I think we have a transition where (if nouveau autoloading is enabled)
the kernel, xserver-xorg-video-nouveau, xorg and xorg-server need to
migrate to testing together to avoid breakage. It would be good to
discuss this with debian-kernel, debian-release and pkg-nvidia-devel
(the proprietary drivers will be broken by nouveau kernel autoloading).
Sven
¹ http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/kernel-svn-changes/2010-April/014394.html
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