Install Nvidia driver instead of nouveau

I've installed Ubuntu 14.04 and I'm experiencing a fuzzy/blurry screen and bad support for multiple screens.

I realized that Ubuntu installs nouveau as default, but I need to install nvidia drivers, so I tried this:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
apt-get update
apt-get install nvidia-current
apt-get upgrade

Now that nvidia is installed, you need to blacklist the nouveau driver so it don’t pop out when you will reboot. Create or edit the following file:

nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf

…and add these lines at the end:

blacklist nouveau
blacklist lbm-nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0
alias nouveau off
alias lbm-nouveau off

I checked via the software & updates if nvidia driver got installed successfully, and it says the driver installed is nvidia 304.117

I then tried to run:

lshw -c video | grep 'configuration'

and the result is that the driver is still nouveau:

configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0

So how do I install and use the nvidia drivers?

Solution 1:

Ubuntu 14.04 and beyond

Please note that nouveau drivers manual removal is required only if you are going to install the proprietary nvidia drivers yourself. If this is not the case then directly install the required graphic drivers from System > Administration > Hardware drivers. It's the recommended and the most convenient way available.

We'll blacklist all the culprit modules, remove all the nvidia* packages and as an extra step we may have to update the initramfs disk because it could be configured to load the modules at startup.

1. Blacklist the modules. Open the blacklist.conf file.

   sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
   

   press i to enter insert mode and add the following modules in the file.

   # this one might not be required for x86 32 bit users.
   blacklist amd76x_edac 
   
   blacklist vga16fb
   blacklist nouveau
   blacklist rivafb
   blacklist nvidiafb
   blacklist rivatv
   

   Save the file and exit.

2. Remove all the nvidia* packages

   sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-*
   

3. Once you are done with the steps above, reboot, stop the display manager and try to install nvidia drivers.

   Press Ctrl+Alt+F1. Once you are in the text mode, stop the display manager. This will forcibly terminate all running applications, so you better save anything you're working on and close them yourself before completing this step. To stop the display manager, run one of these commands depending on your display manager (lightdm is default in vanilla Ubuntu, but older versions or systems with GNOME desktop may use gdm and on KDE/Kubuntu/Plasma it should be kdm:

Edit: To determine what the default display manager your Ubuntu system is using, issue the command cat /etc/X11/default-display-manager While this doesn't guarantee you anything, in many cases it will be the correct choice.

    sudo service lightdm stop

    sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

Now, run the driver package that you downloaded from Nvidia’s website. Edit: Replace the filename in the example below with the one you actually have.

    sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-260.19.44.run

Note: If you still get the error related to nouveau drivers then you are probably required to update the initramfs, which might be configured to load the nouveau drivers. Don't reboot or poweroff, run this command to update the initramfs disk.

sudo update-initramfs -u

Now reboot and repeat step 3. This time things should go smoothly.

Solution 2:

Manual removal of nouveau is not required anymore. If you install nvidia drivers from Additional Drivers on Ubuntu, the installation scripts will make sure that nouveau is blacklisted.

However, before you do anything you have to add graphics repo for nvidia drivers:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt-get update

I suggest you have a look at nvidia website for the drivers your card supports and install those from the Additional Drivers tool on Ubuntu.