These all need to work nicely together as otherwise the user might be faced with data loss (through kernel panics, X servers crashing with unsaved data in X applications) and even hardware failure (overheating and other power management related issues should spring to mind).įrom time to time, a new kernel release changes the internal ABI for drivers, which means all drivers that use those ABIs must be changed accordingly.

The kernel module ( nvidia.ko) consists of a proprietary part (commonly known as the 'binary blob') which drives the graphics chip(s), and an open source part (the 'glue') which at runtime acts as intermediary between the proprietary part and the kernel. It builds as a module, so the kernel must support the loading of kernel modules (see below).

If the system has a card that needs these drivers then it is recommended to use the nouveau driver.Īs mentioned above, the NVIDIA kernel driver installs and runs against the current kernel. Note that Gentoo does not provide legacy drivers before version 390.xx.

6.15 Plymouth can't find nvidia-uvm moduleįILE /etc/portage/e/ffmpeg Disabling the video_cards_nvidia USE flag to ffmpeg media-video/ffmpeg -video_cards_nvidia.

6.14 ERROR: Kernel configuration is invalid.

6.13 Distorted white lines during early boot.

6.12 udevd using 100% of the CPU, X server failed to start.

6.11 No vertical synchronization (no VSync, tearing) in OpenGL applications.

6.7 'no such device' appears when trying to load the kernel module.

6.5 Getting 2D acceleration to work on machines with 4GB memory or more.

6.4 Driver fails to initialize when MSI interrupts are enabled.

6.3 FATAL: modpost: GPL-incompatible module *.ko uses GPL-only symbol.

6.2 Blinking console cursor and the compat USE flag.

4.7 PCI-Express Runtime D3 (RTD3) Power Management.

Geforce drivers