So I've been maintaining the drives on my laptop using module-assistant for some time because it's just so simple.. don't use the laptop often and I decided to update this weekend. but when I went to install the nvidia-legacy drivers using module assistant it no longer works..

anyone have a clue what has changed with this ?

Yes I know I can download the driver straight from nVidia, but this was just more convenient.

The Video controller is a GeForce2 GO so it's only supported up through the nvidia-legacy-96xx series driver.

No big deal just wondered if someone knew how to get this working again with module assistant in Sid.

Not really familiar with Nvidia yet. Hope to change that very soon, but aptitude search nvidia turns up lots of modules name "nvidia-kernel-legacy..." Maybe "nvidia-legacy" isn't specific enough.

Per the documentation it's always been

m-a a-i nvidia
or
m-a a-i nvidia-legacy

depending on which driver you needed..

I see there are 3 drivers now

nvidia
nvidia-legacy 72xx
nvidia-legacy-96xx
but nowhere have i seen a clue how to choose a specific one in module assistant.


Durn Nvidia installer says my kernel was compiled with a different version compiler than is on my machine.. grrr..

Use m-a from the command line then go to the Select option it looks like there is a legacy option in there or at least I think that is what it says it only shows nvidia-kernel-l in the display. For the compiler mismatch you use export IGNORE_CC_MISMATCH=yes to get it to ignore the different version of the compiler.

I have the same issue and I've tried going into the module assistant menu and choosing the legacy option there and it doesn't work. I've tried just running m-a a-i nvidia, but I think that installed the new nvidia drive, because when I ran modprobe nvidia, it says 'error inserting nvidia.......no device found".

I also tried the official drivers from nvidia, and chose to continue even though the compilers didn't match, but it still said failed to build.

Why not downgrade gcc to what the kernel was built with unless you recompile the kernel?
"cat /proc/version" should tell which gcc the kernel was compiled with. If you upgraded gcc, the old version might be installable with just "dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/gcc-ye-olde-version.deb".
Might want to downgrade g++ and cpp to matching versions as well.