After some time, NVIDIA have just released their latest driver – 319.60.  Unfortunately, it fails to compile with the latest kernel – 3.11.3:

/home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60/kernel/os-interface.c: In function ‘os_get_system_memory_size':
/home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60/kernel/os-interface.c:255:21: 
error: ‘num_physpages' undeclared (first use in this function)
     return (((NvU64)NV_NUM_PHYSPAGES * PAGE_SIZE) / RM_PAGE_SIZE);
                     ^
/home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60/kernel/os-interface.c:255:21: 
note: each undeclared identifier is reported only once for each function
 it appears in
/home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60/kernel/os-interface.c:256:1: warning:
control reaches end of non-void function [-Wreturn-type]
 }
 ^
make[4]: *** [/home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60/kernel/os-interface.o] Error 1
make[3]: *** [_module_/home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60/kernel] Error 2
make[2]: *** [sub-make] Error 2
NVIDIA: left KBUILD.
nvidia.ko failed to build!
make[1]: *** [module] Error 1
make: *** [install] Error 2

and… fails to compile with 3.12-rc3:

/home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60/kernel/nv-drm.c: In function ‘nv_alloc_os_descriptor_handle’:
/home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60/kernel/nv-drm.c:204:9: error: void value not ignored as it ought to be
     ret = drm_gem_private_object_init(nvl->drm, &nv_obj->base, size);
         ^
make[4]: *** [/home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60/kernel/nv-drm.o] Error 1
make[3]: *** [_module_/home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60/kernel] Error 2
make[2]: *** [sub-make] Error 2
NVIDIA: left KBUILD.
nvidia.ko failed to build!
make[1]: *** [module] Error 1
make: *** [install] Error 2

I have a feeling that the compile fail with 3.11.3 may be a genuine bug in the code, as I would find it difficult to imagine that NVIDIA would release a driver that didn’t support the latest Linux Kernel – and 3.11.0 was released almost a month ago..   It would appear that the changes for 3.12 kernels would be more complicated, in any case..

Robert Gadsdon.   October 2, 2013.