Debian Bug report logs - #735049
nvidia-support: Debconf prompts are misleading for NVIDIA Optimus users

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Vincent Cheng <vincentc1208@gmail.com>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: nvidia-support: Debconf prompts are misleading for NVIDIA Optimus users

Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 02:56:34 -0800

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Package: nvidia-support
Version: 20130816+1
Severity: important
Tags: patch

Dear Maintainer,

Installing bumblebee-nvidia (for optimus support) also pulls in the
proprietary nvidia packages, along with nvidia-support; during the
installation process, the user will see a debconf prompt saying that a
xorg.conf snippet must be used to enable the nvidia driver
(nvidia-support/create-nvidia-conf), which does not apply for nvidia
optimus users and will break glx on the user's main display if the
user blindly follows those debconf prompts.

Please consider the following patch (attached with this email) against
nvidia-support's debconf templates to address this issue.

Regards,
Vincent

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (700, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (200, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.12-5-vclaptop-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_CA.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_CA.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages nvidia-support depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]  1.5.52

nvidia-support recommends no packages.

nvidia-support suggests no packages.

-- debconf information:
  nvidia-support/check-running-module-version: true
  nvidia-support/last-mismatching-module-version: 310.19
  nvidia-support/removed-but-enabled-in-xorg-conf:
  nvidia-support/create-nvidia-conf: true
* nvidia-support/needs-xorg-conf-to-enable:
* nvidia-support/warn-nouveau-module-loaded:
  nvidia-support/check-xorg-conf-on-removal: true
  nvidia-support/warn-mismatching-module-version:

[nvidia-support-debconf.diff (text/plain, attachment)]

Message #10 received at 735049@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Andreas Beckmann <anbe@debian.org>

To: Vincent Cheng <vincentc1208@gmail.com>, 735049@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#735049: nvidia-support: Debconf prompts are misleading for NVIDIA Optimus users

Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 13:15:34 +0100

On 2014-01-12 11:56, Vincent Cheng wrote:
> Installing bumblebee-nvidia (for optimus support) also pulls in the
> proprietary nvidia packages, along with nvidia-support; during the
> installation process, the user will see a debconf prompt saying that a
> xorg.conf snippet must be used to enable the nvidia driver
> (nvidia-support/create-nvidia-conf), which does not apply for nvidia
> optimus users and will break glx on the user's main display if the
> user blindly follows those debconf prompts.

Aren't there three ways to run such a system:

* in Intel mode (no non-free driver installed, no promts shown)
* in Nvidia mode (only NVIDIA gpu, needs xorg.conf adjustment)
* in Bumblebee mode (no xorg.conf adjustment needed)

So this should be restricted to the bumblebee case, shouldn't it?

+ Ignore this message if you have a laptop with NVIDIA Optimus technology
+ (dual Intel and NVIDIA GPUs).

Or can we somehow detect Optimus systems and show an entirely different
template there?

You can ignore the second template you patched for now, as that script
is not being used currently.

Andreas

PS: before uploading the fix, I'll ask d-l10n-english@ for a review

Message #15 received at 735049@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Vincent Cheng <vcheng@debian.org>

To: Andreas Beckmann <anbe@debian.org>

Cc: 735049@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#735049: nvidia-support: Debconf prompts are misleading for NVIDIA Optimus users

Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2014 05:05:34 -0800

On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 4:15 AM, Andreas Beckmann <anbe@debian.org> wrote:
> On 2014-01-12 11:56, Vincent Cheng wrote:
>> Installing bumblebee-nvidia (for optimus support) also pulls in the
>> proprietary nvidia packages, along with nvidia-support; during the
>> installation process, the user will see a debconf prompt saying that a
>> xorg.conf snippet must be used to enable the nvidia driver
>> (nvidia-support/create-nvidia-conf), which does not apply for nvidia
>> optimus users and will break glx on the user's main display if the
>> user blindly follows those debconf prompts.
>
> Aren't there three ways to run such a system:
>
> * in Intel mode (no non-free driver installed, no promts shown)
> * in Nvidia mode (only NVIDIA gpu, needs xorg.conf adjustment)
> * in Bumblebee mode (no xorg.conf adjustment needed)
>
> So this should be restricted to the bumblebee case, shouldn't it?

Yes, although mux-less optimus laptops are by far the more common
scenario, so option 2 is unavailable for many users, and we don't
particularly care about option 1 since the user wouldn't install the
nvidia packages in that case.

> + Ignore this message if you have a laptop with NVIDIA Optimus technology
> + (dual Intel and NVIDIA GPUs).
>
> Or can we somehow detect Optimus systems and show an entirely different
> template there?

Ack, probably a better idea than just assuming the user knows how to
determine if their laptop uses optimus or not. How Canonical does this
in their nvidia-prime package can be found at [1], which requires
nothing more than lspci (not sure if we can just assume pciutils is
available). I guess we could check for optimus systems in a similar
manner somewhere in postinst, and then just avoid triggering the
nvidia-support/create-nvidia-conf template?

(First email ever using my @debian.org address, yippee! ;)

Regards,
Vincent

[1] https://github.com/tseliot/nvidia-prime/blob/master/prime-supported

Message #22 received at 735049@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Andreas Beckmann <anbe@debian.org>

To: Vincent Cheng <vcheng@debian.org>

Cc: 735049@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#735049: nvidia-support: Debconf prompts are misleading for NVIDIA Optimus users

Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 12:14:09 +0100

On 2014-01-14 14:05, Vincent Cheng wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 4:15 AM, Andreas Beckmann <anbe@debian.org> wrote:
>> Or can we somehow detect Optimus systems and show an entirely different
>> template there?
> 
> Ack, probably a better idea than just assuming the user knows how to
> determine if their laptop uses optimus or not. How Canonical does this
> in their nvidia-prime package can be found at [1], which requires
> nothing more than lspci (not sure if we can just assume pciutils is
> available).

That looks pretty easy, and having a dependency on pci-utils can be
arranged (we might already have this).

So what possible combinations should we handle:

* no nvidia: no debconf
* nvidia + intel + laptop:
  * bumblebee installed: no debconf
  * bumblebee not installed: new debconf recommending bumblebee
* remaining nvidia: old debconf prompt: you need to configure manually

Could you suggest some wording for the template?
Also we should update README.Debian for Optimus systems - could you
suggest some paragraphs?

> I guess we could check for optimus systems in a similar
> manner somewhere in postinst, and then just avoid triggering the
> nvidia-support/create-nvidia-conf template?

create-nvidia-conf is not active, it was a test from me, but never
activated.

> (First email ever using my @debian.org address, yippee! ;)

Welcome!


Andreas

Message #27 received at 735049-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Andreas Beckmann <anbe@debian.org>

To: 735049-done@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#735049: nvidia-support: Debconf prompts are misleading for NVIDIA Optimus users

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2015 15:55:53 +0200

On 2014-01-16 12:14, Andreas Beckmann wrote:
> On 2014-01-14 14:05, Vincent Cheng wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 4:15 AM, Andreas Beckmann <anbe@debian.org> wrote:
>>> Or can we somehow detect Optimus systems and show an entirely different
>>> template there?

Since we have Xorg autoconfiguration these templates are no longer used.


Andreas

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