It would be very usefull to have multiple NVIDIA OpenGL driver versions present in system with ability to switch via opengl-update. The reasons are: - Latest version 4191 have better 3D performance, but 2D speed is unacceptable. - While developing OpenGL applications I want to check against different OpenGL versions/implementations. I think it can be implemented via instaling to different package slot and using /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia-VERSION. opengl-update should be enhanced to also switch kernel module. After package installation, instructions how to switch to new version should be printed on screen: - run opengl-update - exit X - rmmod nvidia - startx
Could be a nice feature addon. I will get to it after I finish on the mesa5 stuff, as that already need some large scale changes to opengl-update. Anyhow, it will be an post 1.4 release issue, as I am a bit swamped with getting things sorted out for 1.4.
Another related enhancement to consider: allow multiple installations of the same versions of the same package. It is usefull for packages like nvidia-kernel and alsa-driver, that potentially install different (but overlapping) set of files depending on where /usr/src/linux symlink is pointing to. Real world example: yesterday I installed 2.4.20-r1, rebuild nvidia and alsa, but then I found that this version runs OpenGL games choppy when dnetc is running in background regardless of lowlatency enabled/disabled/not compiled in at all. I want to switch to 2.4.19-r10 to check previous version. I reboot to 2.4.19 but NVdriver and alsa modules are gone and I already unmerged old kernel sources. I see these lines in nvidia-kernel ebuild: # The slow needs to be set to $KV to prevent unmerges of # modules for other kernels. LICENSE="NVIDIA" SLOT="${KV}" But I'm not sure how it works..
as soon as carpaski does the portage feature needed for this (involves complete re-arrangement of the /var/db/pkg dir to allow for)... I'm marking this LATER, but really it will just be fixed pretty quick after that feature is in portage.
db fix
