On Tue, 18 Aug 2015 15:49:16 -0500 Dale <rdalek1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> walt wrote: > > <entire post severely snipped for brevity> > > > > On Mon, 17 Aug 2015 00:53:37 -0500 > > Dale <rdalek1...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >>>> walt wrote: > >>>>> Linus and friends have been marking lots of existing > >>>>> kernel symbols with the SYMBOL_EXPORT_GPL macro, which was > >>>>> designed to block the loading of any kernel module not > >>>>> explicitly licensed as GPL software. > > > >> The only module I have > >> is Nvidia but that is one thing that doesn't work at times. > >> Sometimes, it doesn't want to boot all the way. It doesn't even > >> get through the kernel loading everything up at times. > > The Nvidia module is causing your problem then, because Nvidia > > supplies their binary blob under their own proprietary license. > > > > I'm using an elderly version of x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers on an > > elderly machine, but when I run 'modinfo -l nvidia' I see 'NVIDIA' > > as the response. If the response isn't 'GPL' then the affected > > kernels will refuse to load the module at boot time. > > > > The kernel devs have provided a workaround for the problem, however: > > > > You (or a gentoo dev) need to edit the source code for the problem > > kernel by changing the SYMBOL_EXPORT_GPL to SYMBOL_EXPORT. > > > > That macro appears maybe hundreds of places in the kernel sources, > > and has been there for years now, but only one or two of those > > source files needs to be patched, depending on which of those > > exported symbols is needed by your particular binary driver (e.g. > > nvidia-drivers or ati-drivers). > > > > This whole GPL/module thing is far from new. What's new is that the > > kernel devs are slowly adding more kernel symbols to their black > > list. > > > > I think the idea is to turn up the pressure very slowly on companies > > like Nividia and ATI to discourage them from providing proprietary > > drivers while not driving them out of the linux market completely. > > > > Every year linux is getting stronger and the devs can afford to be > > pushier with wealthy corporations who need more linux customers. > > > > > > > > > > > > > I think there is two issues but you are addressing one of them it > seems. The other issue happens when the kernel panics and it reboots > itself. It doesn't complete the boot process. The one you describe > could be it tho. On that one, I don't have a GUI. Since I use my > puter a lot, I usually just reboot to a known working kernel and deal > with it later. > > While I think I get the idea of what the kernel devs are doing. I > also think they should let the users send the message. The users can > start buying ATI or other video hardware and at some point, they will > either get their ducks in a row or lose sales. In the meantime, the > users decide what software they want to use. > > I did some searching based on the config option you gave and I'm > unable to find a way to override this myself. It doesn't seem to be > a setting I can put in make.conf or package.use etc either. If this > is the case, I may wish Nvidia would switch to open source but it > sort of rubs me the wrong way that someone else is making the > decision and me having no way to exercise my decision to use it > anyway. I don't care if Nvidia doesn't show its code as long as it > works and it isn't spying on me or blowing up my house here. > > If you have any info on how to override this, I'd be glad to see it. > Just a link or something would help. This is a bug for ati-drivers, but nvidia-drivers has exactly the same problem to solve. Comments 7, 8, 9 sum it up pretty well: https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=548118
