Bug#995026: Bullseye - nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver pulls in some nvidia 460 packages

Jeremy Hendricks

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Sep 24, 2021, 6:40:02 PM9/24/21

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Package: nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver

Version: 390.144-1

I have an odd issue. On a newly installed Debian 11 (bullseye) system, I cannot get the nvidia-legacy-driver-390 drivers to work. During the installation, it prompts me if I want to install the driver for this card even though it's not supported (but it is, it's a Geforce GTX 470) and I select no. I see that it's trying to configure: nvidia-legacy-check_460.91.03-1_amd64.deb

Odd right? I purged everything out for nvidia with: apt purge --autoremove *nvidia* and then did a: apt install nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver -s

It tries to install (in addition to normal 390xx packages):

Inst nvidia-legacy-check (460.91.03-1 Debian:11.0/stable [amd64])
Inst nvidia-alternative (460.91.03-1 Debian:11.0/stable [amd64])
Inst nvidia-egl-common (460.91.03-1 Debian:11.0/stable [amd64])
Inst nvidia-modprobe (460.32.03-1 Debian:11.0/stable [amd64])
Inst libnvidia-cfg1 (460.91.03-1 Debian:11.0/stable [amd64])
Inst nvidia-persistenced (460.32.03-1 Debian:11.0/stable [amd64])
Inst nvidia-vulkan-common (460.91.03-1 Debian:11.0/stable [amd64])

I've never ran into this before. Again, brand new install of Debian 11 x86_64 with the default 5.10.0-8-amd64 and contrib/non-free enabled.

Let me know what other info you need.

Thank you.

Jeremy Hendricks

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Sep 25, 2021, 10:20:02 AM9/25/21

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I confirmed this also happens in Testing (bookworm) aside from it pulling in Nvidia 470 packages instead. I tested this on the same machine but in a bookworm chroot with: apt install nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver -s

Jeremy Hendricks

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Nov 4, 2021, 10:10:03 AM11/4/21

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What worked around the issue for me was: sudo apt install --no-install-recommends nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver nvidia-settings-legacy-390xx nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver-libs:i386

The nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver-libs:i386 package is only needed if you have i386 arch enabled for your setup. I had to manually install this since the --no-install-recommends didn't add it as default.

Jeremy Hendricks

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Nov 4, 2021, 10:10:04 AM11/4/21

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Also: nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver-libs-i386 is needed for proper 32bit support

Jeremy Hendricks

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Jan 21, 2022, 10:00:04 AM1/21/22

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This can probably be closed. I tested again today and it appears to have been fixed. I was able to do a: sudo apt install nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver without issue.

Jeremy Hendricks

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Jan 22, 2022, 5:40:04 PM1/22/22

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I take that back. It worked fine on a Debian 11 machine with a GTX 460. I tried today on my other machine with Debian 11 and a GT 630 and ran into this issue again. I’m going to try to determine the real cause on the same machine the GTX 460 works on.

Please keep this open. My workaround in the previous posts works for me.

Jeremy Hendricks

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Jan 23, 2022, 10:20:04 AM1/23/22

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This is definitely a misconfiguration on my part. I’m trying to track down why it works for me in one case and not another (on the same hardware). Maybe that’ll save others some frustration if it’s just a missing package or similar.

Jeremy Hendricks

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Feb 13, 2022, 10:10:04 PM2/13/22

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I was able to finally track down this issue. The issue is due to the 32bit packages being installed if you have 'sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386'. If you do, 'sudo apt install nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver' will install libnvidia-cfg1 (which is an nvidia 460 component) that causes the initial issue and you won't have the driver installed properly.

Two workarounds if you need 32bit support like I do:

1. 'sudo apt install libnvidia-legacy-390xx-cfg1 nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver' This will prevent libnvidia-cfg1 from being installed and things will be happy for your nvidia 400/500 series like mine.

2. Install normally and ignore the warning about the GPU not being supported. Once it's installed, do this before you reboot: 'sudo apt purge --autoremove libnvidia-cfg1' then reboot. You should be good now.

Option #1 is preferable as I don't know if installing updates down the road for Option #1 would cause libnvidia-cfg1 to be installed. I assume it will be fine but you know what they say about 'assume'.

Jeremy Hendricks

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Feb 13, 2022, 10:10:04 PM2/13/22

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Correction to above:

Option #1 is preferable as I don't know if installing updates down the road
for Option #2 would cause libnvidia-cfg1 to be installed. I assume it will
be fine but you know what they say about 'assume'.