Uninstall nouveau

How to completely remove nouveau to install the driver Nvidia? I tried to install the Nvidia driver as on ubuntu wiki but to no avail. All writes exactly what nouveau is. Tried to add to the blacklist and reboot and nothing too. Tried apt-remove command writes that it is not present.

2

4 Answers

nouveau is the accelerated graphics driver for nVidia graphics Cards.

nouveau can be removed and install NVidia by:

sudo apt-get purge xserver-xorg-video-nouveau && sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

Try this:

Download the driver (I assume you've done this) from nVidia's site. For sake of example I will call it driver.run for this.

You'll need to write down these instructions or access them via another device as you won't have a GUI soon.

1. Now open a tty1 session by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 and log on with either your root account or your local account (which should have access to the sudo command).

2. Now type:

   sudo service lightdm stop
   sudo apt-get remove nouveau

3. Navigate to where you saved your driver.run file with

   cd /directory/where/you/saved/it

4. Then type

   chmod +x driver.run
   ./driver.run

5. Once that finishes (there's a prompt where you have to agree to licensing terms and other things) install nvidia-settings with:

   sudo apt-get install nvidia-settings-### 

   Where ### matches the version number you downloaded (331 in my case)

6. Now, reboot your computer with

   sudo reboot

This should work for you. If it doesn't, you should be able to reinstall nouveau by again opening a tty1 session with Ctrl+Alt+F1 and run

sudo apt-get install nouveau

Great answer, User224082. As a relative newbie, I lack the street cred to be able to vote, but this worked like a charmal, although I had to go to command line (Ctrl+Alt+F1) and then reboot to have it take effect. I had tried to install an upgrade to the Nvidia drivers with their own installer, but it wouldn't install because Nouveau was in use. Then Nouveau went and changed my display to 640x480 (just in spite, I'm sure). This did the trick. My Manjaro distro is hosed as well, and I'll modify it to use there as well.

it is a great idea to purge xserver-xorg-video-nouveau but at my system it still does system calls to nouveau. these are generating error messages on TTY until i reach the graphical display.

i recommend also: blacklisting the nouveau module from kernel via /etc/modprobe.d and updating the initramfs.

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Sign up using Google Sign up using Facebook Sign up using Email and Password Submit

Post as a guest

Post Your Answer Discard

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy