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karabaja4

Member

From: Croatia

Registered: 2008-09-14

Posts: 1,000

Website

Parallel usage of nvidia and nouveau modules

Usually in regular 2D desktop usage I use nouveau drivers, but from time to time I would like to switch to nvidia proprietary drivers to run some random 3D application. Is it possible to have both drivers installed and then switch between them with modprobe (and X restart)?

I tried installing nvidia package over nouveau but dependencies nvidia-utils and libgl are in conflict.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Parallel usage of nvidia and nouveau modules

I think you need to rebuild the kernel too. If I'm right, simple script will do.

litemotiv

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2008-08-01

Posts: 5,026

Re: Parallel usage of nvidia and nouveau modules

Even if this is possible, i very much doubt you will be able to use KMS with nouveau this way.

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Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: Parallel usage of nvidia and nouveau modules

Switching is not that simple, you need to unbind nouveau from the console before you can rmmod the nouveau module. Instructions are here, though I tried once and it didn't even work. In addition to that, as you've noticed, the gl files conflict. So you'll have to write a script that does some renaming or symlink switching. But if you write such a script and unbinding nouveau works for you, then yeah, it's possible.

Edit: Ok, I know why unbinding didn't work for me. I don't have CONFIG_VT_HW_CONSOLE_BINDING in the kernel. The Arch kernel26 package does have it, so what you want is possible. Just write a script to switch the gl files. Or maybe you could simply not install libgl, you don't intend to use it anyway.

Last edited by Gusar (2010-12-09 11:22:14)

ngoonee

Forum Fellow

From: Between Thailand and Singapore

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 7,356

Re: Parallel usage of nvidia and nouveau modules

There's an old topic around here which describes how to do it. Basically there's one library which needs to be symlinked (plus you need to handle moving the xorg.conf files around) to different files depending if you want to use nvidia or nouveau. I always wanted to try it out (and maybe make a package for it) but never got round to it, and nouveau doesn't work too well even in 2D for my system anyway....

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