[mythtv-users] Any Debian / Mythtv / Nvidia users here?

Sat Feb 26 18:40:48 UTC 2011

On 02/25/2011 09:09 AM, stuart wrote:
>
>
> On 02/23/2011 08:30 AM, stuart wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 02/22/2011 05:30 PM, Kevin Ross wrote:
>>> On 2/20/2011 12:53 PM, stuart wrote:
>>>> Hi...
>>>>
>>>> I've done a bad thing.  I updated my Debian Mythtv boxes with out
>>>> checking if there were any Nvidia drivers available.  Now both mythtv
>>>> boxes are broke.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure where the hold up is (maybe someone can say), but from
>>>> mining the internet it appears this problem started about the 11th of
>>>> February (2011) and is centred around not having proprietary Nvidia
>>>> drivers available (yet).
>>>>
>>>> So, I'm asking here what people running Debian Mythtv boxes do.  (Other
>>>> then avoid updates like the plague.)
>>>>
>>>> It's been suggested to wait until new Nvidia drivers float into the
>>>> repositories (hum, been days w/o any TV in the house), try the
>>>> experimental Debian repositories or load up the *real* Nvidia Linux Drivers.
>>>>
>>>> Well, that is what I used to do.  Load up the *real* Nvidia Linux
>>>> drivers. Every time my Fedora box got a new kernel I just recompiled my
>>>> already downloaded Nvidia drivers and off I went.  Simple as that.  But
>>>> then I moved to Debian for more stability (ha, I mean humm).  Now, I
>>>> understand, I am not suppose to install the *real* Nvidia drivers
>>>> because Debian's package manager will have a fit (maybe I should say
>>>> there is the possibility of the Debian packaging manager not working for
>>>> future packaged Nvidia drivers).
>>>>
>>>> So, I'm just asking, what do people here usually do in such a case.
>>>>
>>>> -thanks
>>>
>>> Do NOT install the nvidia drivers from the nvidia website.  There are
>>> nvidia drivers in the Debian repositories, but they are in non-free, not
>>> main.  You don't need anything from experimential.
>>>
>>> Make sure your sources.list looks something like:
>>>
>>> deb     http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib non-free
>>>
>>> Then just:
>>>
>>> # apt-get install nvidia-kernel-dkms nvidia-glx
>>>
>>> and that will install the nvidia driver, version 195.36.31, which is
>>> perfectly fine for MythTV.  The newer 260 version isn't needed.
>>>
>>> It works fine for me.  Hope this helps!
>>>
>>> -- Kevin
>>>
>>
>> Thanks everyone for following up on this thread.  Instead of answering
>> everyone I'll just say this for now...
>>
>> I've spent about an hour a day for the past half dozen trying to fix
>> this problem.  Looking around the web I think it has been a serious
>> Debian / Unstable / Nvidia problem since the 11th of February (2011).
>>
>> This is probably an over simplification (at worst a
>> miss-representation), but I think the dependencies are not working out
>> right:
>>
>>> The following packages have unmet dependencies:
>>>    nvidia-glx : Depends: xorg-video-abi-8.0 but it is not installable or
>>>                          xorg-video-abi-6.0 but it is not installable or
>>>                          xserver-xorg-core (<   2:1.7.7) but 2:1.9.4-3 is to be installed
>>> E: Broken packages
>>
>> I have tried Debian / Experimental as well as some private copies of a
>> Debian / Nvidia build.  So far I have not found anything that will work.
>>
>> I will be sure to post a fully dated follow-up should I come across a
>> solution or if the Debian / Unstable repositories start working again.
>>
>> -thanks
>>
>
> As promised, I'm posting follow ups as I get my Debian / Mythtv / Nvidia
> boxes back up and running...
>
> Timing is everything!
>
> That said, I did get one of my Mythtv boxes up and running.  I ended up
> purging both the xserver and nvidia packages.  Lots of keyboard typing,
> but I believe I followed advice here and other places to use the nvidia
> drivers in Debian / Experimental.  However, in the final step, I did
> need to force the "nvidia-glx" package install.  So...
> 1) Purge xserver and nvidia package.  It's questionable if you really
> need to re-load the xserver packages - but that's what I did.
> 2) Reload the xserver packages.  There are so many that I used "dselect"
> and loaded up "xserver-common" which looks like it picks up everything
> you need.
> 3) Then pick up the nvidia stuff from Experimental:
> apt-get -t experimental install nvidia-kernel-source nvidia-kernel-dkms
> 4) Then I had to down load a local copy and force-load nvidia-glx:
> dpkg --force-depends -i nvidia-glx_260.19.21-1_i386.deb
>
> I believed that worked for my first box.  It is running mythtv back and
> front ends now.  Out of my first "Debian Dependency Snag".  Into my
> second "Debian Dependency Snag".  (I told you timing is everything.)
>
> I essentially repeated everything on the 2nd box.  However, somewhere
> down the line I must have done a system wide update.  I picked up the
> next version of the xserver on my 2nd box and am now trapped in another
> Debian dependency war.
>
> What's going on:
> The broken box's "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" file:
>> [    31.400] (II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
>> [    31.400]    compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.0
>> [    31.400]    Module class: X.Org Video Driver
>> [    31.400] ================ WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING ================
>> [    31.401] This server has a video driver ABI version of 9.0 that is not
>> supported by this NVIDIA driver.  Please check
>> http://www.nvidia.com/ for driver updates or downgrade to an X
>> server with a supported driver ABI.
>
> The broken box's xserver package version number:
>> ii  xserver-common       2:1.9.99.902-3       common files used by various X servers
>
> The working box's xserver package version number:
>> ii  xserver-common       2:1.9.99.902-2       common files used by various X servers
>
> And this is me trying to load the older "xserver-common" package on the
> broken box in hopes of getting my 2nd mythtv box back up and running:
>> # apt-get install xserver-common=2:1.9.99.902-2
>> Reading package lists... Done
>> Building dependency tree
>> Reading state information... Done
>> E: Version '2:1.9.99.902-2' for 'xserver-common' was not found
>
> -darn :(
>

This is me fulfilling my promise to follow up when I found a solution 
(i.e. not to leave anyone hanging at the end one of my threads).

I had mentioned above I got one of my mythtv boxes up and running again. 
  However, I picked up a new xserver-common debian package on the second 
mythtv box.  That made the box incompatible with the nvidia driver.  But 
a friend said he pulled a test bed of software together successfully. 
This is what he / I did (Please use this as a general guide.  Honestly, 
I've been at this so long I don't remember the exact steps.  But I 
recall getting the second box working this way.):

I started out by removing "experimental" from my source.list file and 
re-installing all the xserver debian packages.

I had previously pulled from the debian repository pool of files a set 
of nvidia files that matched the pattern *260*386*deb.  I assumed these 
to be the current experimental files.

I installed them.  However the nvidia-glx_260.19.21-1_i386.deb will not 
install because of dependency issues.  So I forced the install despite 
the dependency issues.

This approach lead me to a working mythtv / debian / nvidia box.

Hopefully, in the near future, the debian repository will sort this all 
out so we can get back to a clean automated debian update.

-thanks all for your help.