2016-08-22

Do you use Linux? With a newer NVIDIA card? The 4.7 kernel breaks NVIDIA's binary driver.

Currently, googling doesn't find this data easily, so I thought I'd post it here where an index-crawler might catch it more easily. If you're not very geeky, this post won't make much sense so feel free to pass over it.

If the title made sense to you, here is (a correct-enough version of) the patch you are looking for. Apply this after extracting (-x) the contents of the package, before running ./nvidia-installer in the resulting directory. Otherwise you will have compile errors:

kernel/nvidia-uvm/uvm_linux.h
557,563d556
< static bool radix_tree_empty(struct radix_tree_root *tree)
< {
<     void *dummy;
<     return radix_tree_gang_lookup(tree, &dummy, 0, 1) == 0;
< }
kernel/nvidia-drm/nvidia-drm-gem.c
411c411
<     gem = drm_gem_object_lookup(dev, file, handle);
---
>     gem = drm_gem_object_lookup(file, handle);
kernel/nvidia-drm/nvidia-drm-fb.c
117c117
<     gem = drm_gem_object_lookup(dev, file, cmd->handles[0]);
---
>     gem = drm_gem_object_lookup(file, cmd->handles[0]);

Someone else (the topic poster here) did the "hard work" to find the commits to the kernel that necessitated these changes. 3 months later (this week-end), after the periodic kernel upgrade (to 4.7.1-ARCH-1) "broke" my video driver, I tried to install version 367.35 of the NVIDIA driver for my GeForce GTX 770 video card and could not. "devtalk.nvidia.com" was not a place I thought to look first -- maybe next time it will be -- so I posted it on more of a "user" board after I developed it for myself. The moderator of that board sent me on my way.

Hopefully my title will be easier for the next bloke -- and once 4.7 is more widely used, there'll be many of them -- to find -- until NVIDIA issues a new version of their driver for the newer kernels.

Keywords: NVIDIA video driver, Linux 4.7, "Installation has failed.", "You may find suggestions on fixing installation problems in the README available on the Linux driver download page"

When you hear Fraser Institute, think "Koch-funded"; When you hear "oil sands", think "tar sands"

This evening on my drive home, I heard a piece on the news (before the traffic report; it's a Sunday evening and the migrants are returning) that I couldn't ignore, not after reading Jane Mayer's Dark Money. I'll let the note I wrote to news1130.com in response fill out what what I meant by the title of this post.

(oh fiddlesticks, I forgot to paste it before cobbling together the other links above; oh well, here's what I wrote to the best of my memory)
Subject: The Fraser Institute and the Oil Sands

It does not serve the public interest to quote, as from an acknowledged authority a warning about how a government policy (in this case Alberta's proposed Carbon Tax) will adversely affect the "Oil Sands" that comes from the Fraser Institute without mentioning (a) how frequently the Fraser Institute has received grants of how much from Koch-funded foundations and (b) to what extent Koch family members have invested in the "Tar Sands" (a far more accurate description of Alberta's northern source of petroleum than "oil sands").

It would suffice add "Koch-funded" as an adjective to "Fraser Institute"; and to add "backed by Koch Industries" in mentioning the "Tar Sands".
The news is about informing the public, not just of events and facts but of the meanings and the possible motivations behind those facts and events and I felt that mentioning the Fraser Institute's concerns without mentioning their backdoor connection to the situation did not complete what the news should be about.