Upgrading kernel require reinstall of Nvidia driver?

[CaffeineAddict]

I don't have a link but I've read somewhere on debian wiki that if you install Nvidia driver that is downloaded from nvidia website
then it's mandatory to reinstall the driver every time you upgrade your kernel because the driver is bound to one kernel only.

Today I got kernel update from backports so I followed this advice to avoid bricking my system and it works fine.
Sadly I couldn't test this because if I did I might not be able to boot into the new kernel, and I've only now figured out I could boot into old kernel but it's too late to test it.

What I'm asking is, is this true?
Would I be able to boot into the new kernel if I didn't reinstall the driver for the new kernel?

 

[MikeWalsh]

@CaffeineAddict :-

I'm no expert on this, because many of us in Puppyland tend to stick with a given kernel for quite a while.....the idea being that "if it works, why try to 'fix it'"? With Puppy's unique way of doing things, you get the choice - at the end of every session - of whether you want to 'save' it or not, so.....

(shrug...)

We use a Puppy-native utility built by one of our Japanese members, that takes the .run file from the Nvidia site and does everything needed to install it (this includes compiling the kernel modules, obviously). I don't know what family of distros you're using, but from what I understand all Debian-based distros use the 'dpkg' framework to auto-download & recompile the kernel modules FOR you, automatically, every time you get a kernel upgrade come down the tubes.....

I'm willing to be corrected on this.


Mike.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

but from what I understand all Debian-based distros use the 'dpkg' framework to auto-download & recompile the kernel modules FOR you, automatically, every time you get a kernel upgrade come down the tubes.....

I'm willing to be corrected on this.

That sounds great! sadly I was too afraid to test it, if somebody who tried it can confirm then I'll be sure.

Yes I'm on debian 12, and already did mess up with the driver and kernel once and had to fix from live image.

 

[GatorsFan]

Nvidia sometimes is behind the kernels upgrade kernel Nividia drivers no longer work - I run Debian - yes Debian does upgrade the kernel but if you need the headers to compile a program then you have to get them manually - here is screenshot of my kernel in Synaptic Package Manager as you can see I had to manually installed linux-headers-6.1.0-18-amd64 which also installs linux-headers-6.1.0-18-common
Once everything checks out I usually remove the old kernel through the Synaptic Package Manager

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Nvidia sometimes is behind the kernels upgrade kernel Nividia drivers no longer work

Thanks for confirming!

Once everything checks out I usually remove the old kernel through the Synaptic Package Manager

Is there a command to list installed kernels and remove specific ones from the terminal? (I don't have synaptic)

 

[GatorsFan]

sudo apt install synaptic

to list kernels - dpkg --list | grep linux-image

 

[dos2unix]

This has been the case on SuSE and Fedora for a long time. I'm not sure when it started, at least 3 or 4 years ago, maybe longer.
Whenever you do a kernel update, it does a kmod/akmod kernel module update. In fedora at least, there are new drivers that get downloaded to match the kernel version. If the nvidia drivers aren't available, it won't let you update the kernel.
(well, you can un-install them, then it will work)

 

[CaffeineAddict]

In fedora at least, there are new drivers that get downloaded to match the kernel version. If the nvidia drivers aren't available, it won't let you update the kernel.

I see, it's different on debian from what I recall reading wiki, it lets you install the kernel and it will auto download nvidia drivers to match but only if your driver was installed from debian's repo. it won't update official driver.

And I'm not sure if running update-initramfs only would work because when the driver is installed it builds kernel modules it seems for the current kernel only.

 

[dos2unix]

but only if your driver was installed from debian's repo. it won't update official driver.

Yes, that's the case in fedora also.