Arch Linux

Jason P.

Member

Registered: 2015-02-26

Posts: 171

Switching between nvidia drivers on a per kernel basis

Hi.

After posting in the "Kernel & Hardware" section about installing linux-ck, I've found a problem that seems not having a straightforward solution and is related with the graphics stack.

All boils down to this: I'd like to boot different kernel and graphics driver combinations. Currently I'm using the stock kernel with the nouveau driver and I'm fine with it. The problem is that I want to use the nvidia driver when booting other different kernel, but if I install the proprietary option I have to blacklist nouveau and remove mesa-libgl package. So far I've found a little script that would smooth the process but still requires manual intervention and involves adding and removing packages.

Apparently seems that drivers in Linux are installed system-wide and not per kernel, or am I wrong? Ideally I'd like to have each driver "installed" only for a specific kernel.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,076

Re: Switching between nvidia drivers on a per kernel basis

You can install the driver modules for specific kernels yes, but the libGLs and X11 and such and other user space libraries are independent of the kernel, and you would have to switch them out manually anyway