As we seem to be stuck for some time with NVIDIA drivers incompatible with the latest kernels, patching seems to be more of a necessity, now.

Thanks to a comment from Giordano, I have learned of a way to ‘automatically’ patch any NVIDIAxxxxxx.run file directly, and re-create a corresponding NVIDIAxxxxxx.run file which includes the patch..    The help function does not go into much actual detail, but by the usual trial and error I managed to figure it out!

The command format is:

# ./NVIDIAxxxxxx.run --apply-patch <patch-file-name>
or (on some systems)
# sh ./NVIDIAxxxxxx.run --apply-patch <patch-file-name>

– and will give a corresponding ‘patched’ self-extracting/executing file called NVIDIAxxxxxx-custom.run

The only quirk, is that the patch file itself needs to be in a certain format..

Many patch files contain a specific reference to the files to be patched, as follows:

--- NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60/kernel/nv-drm.c  2013-09-26 01:02:38.000000000 +0400
+++ NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60/kernel/nv-drm.c  2013-09-26 01:02:38.000000000 +0400

Or – in some cases:

--- a/kernel/nv-drm.c  2013-09-26 01:02:38.000000000 +0400
+++ b/kernel/nv-drm.c  2013-09-26 01:02:38.000000000 +0400

But – for the ‘auto patch’, this needs to be changed to

--- kernel/nv-drm.c  2013-09-26 01:02:38.000000000 +0400
+++ kernel/nv-drm.c  2013-09-26 01:02:38.000000000 +0400

Then (for example):

# ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60.run --apply-patch nvidia_312_patch_run.patch
Verifying archive integrity... OK
Uncompressing NVIDIA Accelerated Graphics Driver for Linux-x86_64 319.60.............
.....................................................................................
patching file kernel/nv-drm.c
patching file kernel/nv-linux.h
.................
Adding files to archive named "NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60-custom.run"...
./libvdpau.so.319.60
./.manifest
./glxext.h
./glx.h
./mkprecompiled
./libGL.la
./glext.h
<long list of files...>
./nvidia-smi.1.gz
./nvidia-persistenced
./libnvidia-ml.so.319.60
./nvidia-installer.1.gz
./gl.h
./libnvidia-ifr.so.319.60

CRC: 2418980242
MD5: d593f39a7b899b47502c7f1c3e808e96

Self-extractible archive "NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60-custom.run" successfully created.

This patched NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.60-custom.run can then be used in place of the original..

Of course, as I write this, and after many weeks of waiting, I have just noticed there is – finally – an updated NVIDIA driver on the download site!

Robert Gadsdon.   October 23, 2013.