[mythtvnz] 18.04.1 upgrade and old Nvidia drivers

[Curtis Walker]

On Wed, 15 Aug 2018 at 18:02, Daniel Hughes <trampster at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I haven't used a rolling distro before, but would that actually help,
> do they maintain compatibility for everything forever or would a
> rolling release just mean that a routine update could drop support for
> your graphics card. Which kind of seems worse to me.
> On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 5:57 PM Stephen Worthington
> <stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 15 Aug 2018 17:51:57 +1200, you wrote:
> >
> > >On Wed, 15 Aug 2018 at 17:07, Stephen Worthington
> > ><stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> I just got the notification today that I can upgrade my MythTV box
> > >> from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04.1.  But in researching and testing the
> > >> upgrade, I have come across a serious problem for boxes that are using
> > >> old Nvidia drivers, like my mother's.  Her box needs the Nvidia 304
> > >> series drivers, which are no longer supported by Nvidia:
> > >>
> > >> https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3142/~/support-timeframes-for-unix-legacy-gpu-releases
> > >>
> > >> As a result of the support having been dropped, the 304 drivers
> > >> apparently do not compile against the 4.15 series kernels used in
> > >> 18.04.1, and as a result of that, Ubuntu has dropped the Nvidia 304
> > >> driver packages.  There are web pages that tell you how to install the
> > >> 304 drivers by downloading them from Nvidia and patching them before
> > >> installing.  I have not tried this yet, and it will certainly
> > >> complicate doing kernel updates, unless I can work out how to automate
> > >> it using DKMS.
> > >>
> > >> The implications for doing an 18.04.1 upgrade are also nasty.  You
> > >> will probably need to remove the Nvidia drivers and switch back to the
> > >> Nouveau drivers before doing the upgrade.  The Nouveau drivers have
> > >> now got VDPAU support, but I have not tried using them with MythTV.
> > >> Last I heard, a couple of years ago, Nouveau+VDPAU did not work as
> > >> well with MythTV as it should.  But it would be worth trying again now
> > >> to see if it was OK - if so, that might be the best path forwards for
> > >> MythTV boxes with old Nvidia cards.
> > >>
> > >> This same problem will hit users of Nvidia cards using the 340 drivers
> > >> (such as my GT 220 cards) at the end of 2019 when Nvidia stops support
> > >> for them also.  Nvidia seems to be thinking that all its older GPUs
> > >> are no longer being used.  That may well be the case for video cards
> > >> with fans, but my fanless ones, and my mother's motherboard builtin
> > >> GPU, are still going just fine after more than 8 years 24/7.
> > >
> > >Nasty. Perhaps a reason to switch to a rolling distro, such as Arch
> > >linux? Although in the past year I've also had to relegate my GTX460
> > >to legacy 390xx-series drivers, which was a pain at the time.
> >
> > A rolling distro would not help.  What is needed is a distro that has
> > someone who is willing to do the patching required to make the drivers
> > compile against later kernels.  But even that has its limits - once
> > the kernels change enough that there need to be fixes in the binary
> > blob parts of the Nvidia drivers, there is no way to fix that without
> > Nvidia doing it.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > mythtvnz mailing list
> > mythtvnz at lists.ourshack.com
> > https://lists.ourshack.com/mailman/listinfo/mythtvnz
> > Archives http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/mythtvnz/
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtvnz mailing list
> mythtvnz at lists.ourshack.com
> https://lists.ourshack.com/mailman/listinfo/mythtvnz
> Archives http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/mythtvnz/

Well, as Shelley wrote in "Ozymandias", nothing lasts forever,
including workable drivers for old hardware. However, and in reply
also to Steven W, in my decade long experience with Arch, older
hardware remains well supported through official repositories and then
the community through AUR. For official repositories, the drivers are
tested and compiled and updated alongside the kernel and other core
software more regularly than milestone distros, which *is* an
advantage of rolling release.

I am confident that even if NVIDIA EoL's the 340xx or 390xx series of
drivers, then compatibility with the updated kernel would continue.
And how many improvements / enhancements through drivers are we
realistically expecting at this point in 8yr+ old graphics cards (and
are there any real-world security concerns with graphics drivers not
getting patched?)