udev vs nvidia

[Daniel Drake <dan@reactivated.net>]

Hi,

Since switching to udev, I have had problems when starting X relating to 
nvidia drivers. I know this is a tricky situation, with the nvidia drivers 
being closed-source, nobody really knows how they work. If it seems likely 
that this problem is not udev-related, then please tell me, and I will go to 
nvidia instead.

I'm not sure if this is even anything to do with udev. The only reason I 
suspect udev might be involved, is because of the existance of /dev nodes 
seems to play a part.


I am running nvidia drivers version 5336 with Martin Schlemmer's patch applied 
to make them export info into sysfs.
If I manually "modprobe nvidia", then I can see that the /dev/nvidia0 and 
/dev/nvidiactl nodes are created. So at this stage it seems to be loaded.


Ignoring the above situation, on a normal bootup, the nvidia module is not 
loaded at the point where I "startx":

# ls /dev/nvidia*
no such file or directory

# startx
XFree86 Version 4.3.0
Release Date: 27 February 2003
[snip]
(=) Using config file: "/etc/X11/XF86Config"
Using vt 7
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module!
(EE) NVIDIA(0):  *** Aborting ***
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.

Fatal server error:
no screens found

If I mknod the /dev/nvidia* nodes first, then X is able to start as normal. 
Also, strangely, if I "modprobe nvidia", and then "startx" then X starts as 
normal.

I believe that this problem comes around because the /dev nodes are not 
created quickly enough.

# modprobe nvidia && ls -l /dev/nv*
ls: /dev/nv*: No such file or directory

# rmmod nvidia

# modprobe nvidia && sleep 2 && ls -l /dev/nv*
crw-rw-rw-    1 root     video    195,   0 Feb 16 19:47 /dev/nvidia0
crw-rw-rw-    1 root     video    195, 255 Feb 16 19:47 /dev/nvidiactl


My theory is that X loads the "nvidia" module, and then immediately tries to 
initialize the display and whatever else. But as the nvidia* nodes arent in 
place, it dies.

I am running udev017 on linux 2.6.3-rc2-mm1

Any ideas?

cheers,

Daniel


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