recently it seems that xorg-server-1.5.x was masked in the tree. This conflicts with the requirements of 96.43.14 series nvidia-drivers which do not work with 1.6 Despite this being rather old hardware it is ideally suited to non-games desktop use and I especially sought out such cards that do not need a blower to keep them cool. Low power, low cost and above all ZERO noise. This is not obsolete hardware. Please ensure xorg-server-1.5.x is kept available in portage. thx. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. emerge -uD world 2. 3. Actual Results: !!! The following installed packages are masked: - x11-base/xorg-server-1.5.3-r7 (masked by: package.mask) /usr/portage/new/profiles/package.mask: # Tomáš Chvátal <scarabeus@gentoo.org> (23 Jan 2010) # Obsoleted by xorg-server-1.6 # Let us know in bugs if you have some issues with 1.6 Expected Results: xorg-server 1.5 to be kept in tree to support for these drivers
Binary only drivers isn't a valid reason to keep old X.org servers around, sorry. If NVidia has discontinued the support for your card, you should contact NVidia, not Gentoo, not X.org That said: Use xf86-video-nv
Please use xf86-video-nouveau (for now probably from x11 overlay). It provides stable 2D support with recent kernels (2.6.33 is recomended - please look at instruction on http://nouveau.freedesktop.org ). Nouveau still experimental, but lot of users using it more than few years. So I recomend you this fully opensource driver rather than deprecated and buggy driver from nvidia.
I forgot - Nouveau support from cards as TNT2 up to lastest GTX260...
Don't be so quick to dismiss this. What does binary have to do with it? nvidia-drivers are in portage , it's not "unsupported software". Neither has Nvidia stopped supporting this hardware. They maintain two series of drivers , one for older hardware. * x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers : [M ] 71.86.09 (0) [M ] 71.86.11 (0) [ ~ ] 96.43.10 (0) OVERLAY [ ] 96.43.13 (0) [ ~I] 96.43.14 (0) [M ] 173.14.20 (0) [M~ ] 173.14.20-r1 (0) [M~ ] 173.14.22 (0) [M ] 180.60 (0) [M ] 185.18.36 (0) [M~ ] 185.18.36-r1 (0) [M~ ] 190.29 (0) [M~ ] 190.42-r3 (0) [M~ ] 190.53 (0) [M~ ] 190.53-r1 (0) (NB. do not read redundant for older hardware. This sort of card is a valid choice for many systems.) I have no idea what the detailed issues are with newer xorg but there must be fundamental issues since the legacy-drivers were updated no so long ago. They are not unmaintained. If Nvidia put the time in to supply linux users with drivers I don't expect the distro to tell me to go out and buy newer, noisier, less suitable hardware. Also nv is not an equivalent replacement since the is no hardware acceleration. Please look at this again.
>> Nouveau still experimental, but lot of users using it more than few years. So I recomend you this fully opensource driver rather than deprecated and buggy driver from nvidia. >> I'm all for open-source solutions where they exist but I don't want to downgrade to 2D only drivers. Niether is it valid to call the legacy drivers "deprecated" or "buggy". They work fine and are maintained as an independant branch by Nvidia.
CCing all relevant parties. Statement for X11 team: We do not, and don't plan to keep 3 different xorg implementations in main tree at all. Make your graphic card vendor to update your driver or migrate to opensource alternatives. No other linux distro is supporting 1.5 in current release now (if we dont count debian as ussual) (for us this bug is INVALID) But i leave the decision to maintainer of the binary thingie.
Okey, so Nouveau 2D offer KMS, GEM and TTM memory managment. 2D is much better with it and Nouveau soon gain working 3D support for older cards (in few weeks it will be merge into mesa). There is no reason, to support deprecated xserver.
I'll be more than happy to use Nouveau once it is a valid replacement. So if that's due in the next few weeks let's wait and see it when it happens. I don't think it's in the interest of Linux generally to start dissing Nvidia's drivers. They have been far more supportive of linux than other vendors. I'll test if nouveau is able to deliver on this hardware, and post result here.
(In reply to comment #0) > This is not obsolete hardware. No it's not, but nvidia decided it is. Not our decision really. > Please ensure xorg-server-1.5.x is kept available in portage. Won't happen. I had to backport over 80 patches to 1.5 to make it somewhat usable. If you _really_ want to keep it, just copy the ebuilds and patches to a local overlay. Trying Nouveau is a _definitely_ recommended alternative. Thanks
OK, I checked back with Nvidia which says 96.43.14 does support 1.7 After rebuilding mesa and xorg-server with nptl (was -nptl) and rebuilding the all the associated driver packages it now works. So drivers are not buggy and deprecated, full credit to NV for excellent linux support. I will be interested to try nouveau once they have a full feature set but 2D is really not a valid alternative to full functionality. Thanks to Remi for all the work on 1.5 which has kept me going til now.
