Hey everyone,
I recently hit a massive brick wall on Debian Sid/Testing when my kernel updated to 7.0+. My NVIDIA driver (550.163) completely failed to compile via DKMS, and to make matters worse, trying to hotplug my external USB-C monitor on Wayland caused my GPU to panic and the laptop fans to instantly ramp up to 100%.
Since official support for 7.0+ RC/testing kernels isn't fully here yet, I did a deep dive into the kernel source and the ACPI power states to figure out exactly what broke and how to bypass it.
I've documented the full architectural breakdown and provided a C-patch in a Gist, but here is the TL;DR:
# 1. The Kernel 7.0+ DKMS Breakage
Linux 7.0 completely refactored the VMA locking API. They purged the
VMA_LOCK_OFFSET macro from include/linux/mm_types.h and changed the signature of __is_vma_write_locked() from 2 arguments to 1. The NVIDIA proprietary driver source (specifically nv-mmap.c) still tries to use the old API, causing GCC to abort.The Fix: I wrote a forward-compatibility patch using
#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= KERNEL_VERSION(7, 0, 0) to provide a synthetic VMA_LOCK_OFFSET and route the lock checks through __vma_raw_mm_seqnum().# 2. The Wayland USB-C / D3cold Panic
In hybrid Optimus laptops, the USB-C DP alt-mode is physically wired to the NVIDIA dGPU. When your Wayland compositor (Niri, Sway, etc.) routes rendering through the AMD iGPU for power saving, the NVIDIA GPU enters
D3cold (deep sleep). When you hotplug a monitor, the GPU wakes up, but Wayland never establishes an EGL context for it. The GPU panics, and the firmware maxes out the fans to prevent thermal damage.The Fix: You have to force the GPU to maintain state and provide a legacy framebuffer.
GRUB: `nvidia-drm.modeset=1 nvidia_drm.fbdev=1`
Modprobe (
/etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-pm.conf): options nvidia NVreg_DynamicPowerManagement=0x02# The Patch & Full Guide
If you are currently stuck on Kernel 7.0+ and need to get your DKMS building again, you can grab the
.patch file and the auto-patching instructions for dkms.conf here:**https://gist.github.com/louzt/1c85044d5090d19223c3f5edf426a19e**
Disclaimer: I am currently pinned to kernel 6.19.14 for work stability, so I am publishing this patch as an RFC (Request for Comments) based on forensic analysis. If you are on 7.0+ and apply the patch, please share your build logs in the Gist comments!
https://redd.it/1u85s74
@r_linux
