Hello everyone,

last weekend reinstalled slackware-current (I messed up the last install) and wanted install the nvidia driver from the nvidia webpage. The only problem is, that I'm not able to completely disable nouveau.

I created the /etc/modprobe.d file named blacklist_nouveau with the content of
In addition I added the "nomodeset" to the grub cmd and updated the config. There was no modesetting anymore and the nvidia driver installed without a problem. But by accident I discovered the nouveau still is loaded, although you can easily remove it via modprobe -r. I did some research and as far as I understood, you have to rebuild the initramfs (via dracut on RedHat or update-ramfs on Debian/Ubuntu), but I can't manage to get this done under slackware. The mkinitrd doesn't have an option for this, has anyone tried this yet and can give me a hint on that?

Try the blacklist package under --Current located in /extra/, labeled as xf86-video-nouveau-blacklist-1.0-noarch-1.txz

/usr/sbin/geninitrd

Check the output of /usr/share/mkinitrd/mkinitrd_command_generator.sh and see if it includes the nouveau driver in the modules. If it does, it might be as simple as just removing that module from the generated list of modules.

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Thanks for your answers. Bassmadrigals hint solved it. After /usr/share/mkinitrd/mkinitrd_command_generator.sh I could create the appropiate ramdisk, now there is no nouveau.

Excellent, so what does that mean for the blacklist package - perhaps Pat may need to look that over, as I am now confused as to the purpose of it .

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It is because the nouveau is a module and having the blacklist prevents the system from loading the module. However, now that -current has switched to a generic kernel and needs an initrd to boot, if that initrd contains that module, the blacklist won't apply since it will be loaded before the system is booted enough to be able to read that file.

You could also try adding module_blacklist=nouveau to your kernel appends line in your bootloader. That might prevent the initrd from loading it, but I don't know for sure.

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That is an interesting answer, so to confirm by what you are stating the package is essentially obsolete I guess? I think maybe this could also be the reason for the missing penguins in that other thread? All I can say also about that - is on my bare metal install of 14.2 , as soon as I removed the nouveau driver by blacklisting via package, the penguins were there and never disappeared after a while, but now I am getting off topic.

So - as for the package, maybe it should be dropped in current and just a little hint in the readme adding that that blurb if one wants to blacklist it that way?

I don't know about obsolete, but if an initrd is generated with the nouveau driver and the system is booted off that initrd, I don't think the blacklist file is used.

That's possible, but I am not familiar enough with Nvidia hardware to understand all that.

Either way probably works. I know there are people who recompile their kernels or switch to the huge so they don't require an initrd. They could still benefit from the package. And if someone builds an initrd without the nouveau module, the package could also be useful.

It is interesting to note, that is very similar to the one created by the NVIDIA installer if it detects the nouveau driver and you allow it to create it. This is what is created by the installer.
The xf86-video-nouveau-blacklist-1.0-noarch-1.txz package add this.
I don't see the purpose of that options line. My logic is, your are blacklisting nouveau, why give it options.

Well, I had this from various Debian Forums, and they included even some aliases like lrm_nouveau. In Debian these contents of the blacklist file are mostly done by the packaged binary drivers from the non-free repository.

Thanks! That is interesting. Still, it seems weird, at least to me, that option line is included.