Is it possible to switch between Nvidia's BLOB and Nouveau video drivers on-the-fly?
I think I need to be able to:
- [✓] Unload nvidia
- [✓] Unload nouveau
- [✕] Restore the console after unloading nouveau*
- [✓] Swap xorg.conf files
- [✓] Take care of blacklisting
- [✓] Deal with libglx.so
*) After a bit of talk with the guys at #nouveau, it seems to be difficult or even impossible with the current Ubuntu setup (builtin vesafb). I'm trying to get it to work with uvesafb, but for now the scripts in the answer do what I was looking for.
Best Answer
I now have two scripts that switch drivers, xorg.conf, take care of blacklisting and the libglx, so the answer is: yes, it is possible.
Blacklisting works with one file in
/etc/modprobe.d/
containing eitherblacklist nvidia
orblacklist nouveau
. I also replaced/lib/nvidia-current/modprobe.conf
with a dummy, else the nvidia driver would always create a link in/etc/modprobe.d/
that blacklists nouveau.Switch to nouveau:
After executing that, I have nouveau running and a working console (nouveaufb).
Switch to nvidia:
→ Nvidia driver is working, only problem: after unloading the nouveau driver, the console is unusable. I need a way to reset it or load another framebuffer, but since vesafb is compiled into the kernel I don't know what to do.