NVIDIA driver packages the easy way

I have installed the nvidia driver the easy way. Through repository ftp://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/leap/42.2 on OpenSUSE Leap 42.2.

Though I ask here as NVIDIA says the packages in this repository is maintained and supported by Novell/SUSE.


The driver RPMs hosted in this location are entirely built, maintained and supported by Novell/SUSE.  
NVIDIA hosts them as a courtesy to Novell, however all problems and support requests related to these RPMs should be reported to Novell via their bug tracking system:
http://bugzilla.novell.com

With the SUSE OBS wouldn’t it be easy to create nvidia packages for Tumbleweed. I like to update my Linux kernel frequently, but it entails more work needing to recompile the nvidia driver each time. Having nvidia packages built against the latest kernel would be appreciated.

Is there a particular reason why Tumbleweed cannot get nvidia built packages like leap does?

Most likely due to “quite some extra work and sometimes problems the package maintainer can not fix and your system might be broken then”.

Mainly there are two things that can break the package.

  1. Kernel update to a new release for example 4.9.x to 4.10.x and building of kernel module fails. This will hit you regularly and can be fixed by the packager if (s)he finds or creates a patch which fixes the build as there actually is source code for building the kernel modules.

  2. Updates of xorg to a new release with ABI changes. This will also happen regularly and is something the packager can not fix due to the “binary only” nature of those parts of the driver.

If 2) happens, you would have to wait for NVidia to release new drivers and in the meantime your packages will break user’s systems or updating the system will result in a broken system and the package maintainer can not do anything about it.

AK