tips on keep certain packages while updating (i.e. nvidia drivers)

[Nicolas Chauvet]

2012/11/7 Ismael Olea <ismael at olea.org>:
>
> Hi:
>
> I have a little problem when updating my nvidia system: usually new kernel
> updates pushes the matching kmod-nvidia package to be updated too (which is
> nice) but in the process removes old ones, tipically the ones the system is
> using at that moment. I'm not a fan of rebooting except when absolutely need
> and this behavior makes mad gnome-shell when I restart it (it eats lots of
> memory due to memory leaks from hell).
>
> Do you have any tip to keep just certain packages not removed when updating?
Having packages not removed means they can install in parallele. This
is very complicated in the nvidia case because it would means having a
version in the path of all libraries so ldconfig can switch which
version of which driver to select, based on the versioned directory.

Instead, a better solution might be related to the offline updates
feature in fedora 18
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/OfflineSystemUpdates
I haven't tested anything in this area. But that would solve the case
where the nvidia driver is updated on a running system.
That will be a better time for updates, but it will need for the kmod
to get ready in time for the offline update, specially if it's
triggered by a kernel update.

For the record, we try to only push version updates for kmod when a
new kernel is available so the users is already invited to reboot. But
booting on an older kernel is an issue if the kernel module doesn't
match the userland counterpart, indeed.

Nicolas (kwizart)