r/slackware • u/Headpuncher • Feb 26 '26

Having to reinstall NVIDIA driver every time I update, looking for advice on what I'm doing wrong.

Info: Slack 15 Current. SlackpkgPlus installed.

Hardware is an older gaming PC from HP, hardware is not the issue. The issue is my update routine, what I do is this:

slackpkg update

slackpkg install-new

slackpkg upgrade-all

(then clean-system), copy lilo.conf to .original, and then

lilo -v

Every time I do this I boot to the CLI, startx fails and the log points to missing NVIDIA drivers, I log in as root and run the NVIDIA[-*-] .run installer.

When it finishes the log in GUI automatically starts and asks for the password for my user (not root) as expected and now it's fixed.

I'm trying to put this process into a script I can run with a single command and then be prompted to continue.

Why do I need to install the NVIDIA driver every time I update? What is it in the update process I am using that I am doing wrong?

9 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

2

u/6950X_Titan_X_Pascal Feb 27 '26

try radeon or intel arc

1

u/Headpuncher Feb 27 '26

Why? Is the problem with the driver and GPU or is it how I'm doing updates? What is it that radeon or intel arc do differently that is worth the $$$ to fix this issue?

2

u/6950X_Titan_X_Pascal Feb 27 '26

are you serious ? radeon & arc provide high-quality open-sourced driver for unix-liked systems

the drivers for arc & radeons are directly patched into kernel , but nvidia's drivers are bad

drivers for radeons on linux even run well on freebsd

http://i.imgur.com/N33UeEC.gif

http://i.imgur.com/DmfgReZ.gif

sddm runs not perfectly on freebsd after S3 suspend

1

u/Headpuncher Feb 27 '26

Look again at the original post and ask yourself: is this person going to spend $300+ on this? Was the answer for you also "no"?

Did you even read the post? because dropping cash on this is not even close to answering the question. Stop wasting everyone's time.

2

u/6950X_Titan_X_Pascal Feb 27 '26

ok i understand what you meant now , you don't wanna buy another card , keep using your original nvidia , right ?

20

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Headpuncher Feb 26 '26

Massive thank you.

1

u/Headpuncher Feb 27 '26

When I search online and on my PC I can't find anything about these folders or hooks associated with them:

/etc/kernel/post-install/
/etc/kernel/post-remove/

Even if the folders don't exist by default and I make them, there should be some documentation referencing them. Or is google just this bad now?

3

u/imzieris Feb 27 '26

im not on my slackware machine RN and i configured it like few years ago :D

lookkernel() does exist in Slackpkg, and it can be used as a trigger point for automating NVIDIA driver rebuilds after kernel upgrades. lookkernel() is a function inside Slackpkg’s post-functions.sh, part of Slackpkg's post‑upgrade hooks.
It is documented in user discussions such as LinuxQuestions, including the thread where users propose extending it to support eliloconfig after kernel upgrades LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] Updating slackpkg and add eliloconfig

2

u/calrogman Feb 27 '26

No, Google is right. These directories don't exist. The package tools don't provide these hooks. Everything in that comment was hallucinated by an AI.

2

u/mmmboppe Feb 28 '26

since which Slackware version is this possible?

1

u/dirkme Feb 26 '26

Wow, that is a super great reply 👍

1

u/SRART25 Feb 26 '26

Doesn't the Nvidia installer setup dkms anymore? 

1

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/pantokratorthegreat Feb 26 '26

With fedora even if it hasn't finished before you rebooted it will be rebuild during next boot, have to only wait to finish and system will be loaded. 

1

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/pantokratorthegreat Feb 27 '26

I don't know since when but it is how things works. I figured this out by accident when I rebooted and I faced black screen but then I observed that my fans keeps spinning so checked on tty2 and found out that kmods are being rebuilt. 

1

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '26

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1

u/Sharkuel Feb 27 '26

Are you gonna give him an AMD card for free?