nvidia-versions

NVIDIA driver version management tools

This repository contains scripts for streamlining the process of announcing updates to the NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers.

A typical driver release consists of the following steps:

1. Edit nvidia-versions.txt to refer to the new driver. Remember to remove stale entries for old release branches that have been superseded. Leave the latest beta release even if a newer driver is available.

   If the current long-lived and official branches are the same, leave both entries but update them to the same version number.

2. Run make. This builds the parser and validates the syntax of nvidia-versions.txt, and then generates a template for the announcement forum post with links to the driver.

3. Diff the changelog from the previous release to generate a list of changes. Manually format this and post an annoucement at https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/c/gpu-graphics/announcements-and-news/146

4. Record the post ID and add a line to URLs.hs for that post in the forumUrls map. Try to keep this list roughly sorted, just for aesthetics.

5. Add a line for the new driver to the nvidiaUrls map in URLs.hs. Use the appropriate helper function for the URL scheme used by this release, or add a new one if necessary.

6. Run make again. This rebuilds the parser then generates the contents of the "Current graphics driver releases" forum post.

7. Edit the post at https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/current-graphics-driver-releases/28500

   Paste the text generated in the previous step into the first post in that thread. Verify that all of the links work.

8. Post a reply to the thread linking to the announcement forum post. This marks the "Current graphics driver releases" thread as unread for people viewing the forum, so they know that a new release has been made.

   Delete any posts in the thread that are stale. For example, delete posts announcing earlier releases in the same release branch, but leave the post announcing the latest long-lived branch release. Users can always look at https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/c/gpu-unix-graphics/announcements-and-news/ to find old release announcements.

9. Commit your change and push it to GitHub.

10. For each of nvidia-settings, nvidia-xconfig, nvidia-installer, nvidia-modprobe, and nvidia-persistenced, unpack the release tarballs and commit, tag, and push the changes:

    rm -r *
    tar --strip-components=1 -xvf /path/to/nvidia-whatever-<version>.tar.gz
    git add -A
    git status
    git diff --cached
    git commit -S -m <version>
    git tag <version>
    git push github master <version>
    

11. Update the changelog to add a release date line for this release.