Arch Linux

arek_menner

Member

Registered: 2013-03-20

Posts: 8

Parallel Version of Packages?

Hey folks,

This may be a dumb question. I have a 4.2 kernel (totally manually installed from a source tree, so not through pacman at all) that I've been messing around with for fun, but I also like to keep my current 4.1-ARCH kernel around for general use.

I was trying to install the NVIDIA package for my 4.2 kernel, but when I run

makepkg -c

, it yells at me for not having linux-headers>=4.2 and nvidia-utils=355.11. This makes plenty of sense, and I'd have no problem if I were planning on throwing out my 4.1 kernel, but I still need it most of the time.

So, is there any way to have parallel versions of these packages lying around? Could I have, e.g. nvidia-utils 355.11 around without stomping on my current version, or would I need to install these dependencies, do what I want, and then revert back when I want to be on my 4.1 kernel again?

I realize this is the fringiest of fringe cases, so if it's just not possible or if the solution is really hacky, there's no problem at all.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,458

Website

Re: Parallel Version of Packages?

I realize this is the fringiest of fringe cases, so if it's just not possible or if the solution is really hacky, there's no problem at all.

Not at all.  Having multiple kernels installed is fairly common.  It can be challenging to have multiple versions of other packages, but the kernel is actually fairly easy.  Just change the package name (and kernel name) to something other than "linux" and "vmlinuz-linux".  There are countless examples already in the AUR and some unofficial repos: linux-ck is the first to come to mind.  In the case of linux-ck the '-ck' is for the patchset applied - if you are not applying any patches, but just want a different version you could just call it linux-mine or somesuch.
Just make sure that the package 'provides' linux=4.2.

But to build nvidia for 4.2 you will need to build/install the 4.2 headers.  You may want to check out linux-git in the AUR (actually know on 4.3).

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman