Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint / LMDE NVIDIA Drivers Uninstall Guide

5. Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint / LMDE Uninstall NVIDIA drivers and Enable Nouveau

I assume here that you have used this guide install part to install your NVIDIA drivers. This whole process is good to run on runlevel 3. When there is no X running. So first boot to runlevel 3 using direct parameter (3) on Grub linux/linuxefi line or using “systemctl set-default multi-user.target”.

5.1 Change root user

su -
## OR ##
sudo -i

5.2 Start NVIDIA Uninstall Process

nvidia-installer --uninstall

5.3 Restore / Remove /etc/X11/xorg.conf

You can restore xorg.conf backup or remove /etc/X11/xorg.conf if you don’t have any special configuration.

5.4 NVIDIA Uninstall Warning

You might see following warning if you have updated some packages since nvidia drivers installation. Just select “OK”.

5.5 NVIDIA Installer Uninstalling

5.6 Fedora NVIDIA Uninstall Complete

5.7 Remove blacklist nouveau

Remove ‘blacklist nouveau’ line from /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

5.8 Remove NVIDIA Plymouth related confs (if you enabled it or skip this step)

rm /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf /etc/dracut.conf.d/nvidia.conf

5.9 Edit /etc/default/grub

Remove ‘rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau’ from end of ‘GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”…”‘

## Example row on Debian ##
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"

5.10 Update grub2 conf

update-grub2

5.11 Generate initramfs

## Backup old initramfs nvidia image ##
mv /boot/initrd.img-$(uname -r) /boot/initrd.img-$(uname -r)-nvidia
 
## Generate new initramfs image ##
dracut -q /boot/initrd.img-$(uname -r) $(uname -r)

5.12 Reboot

Run systemctl set-default graphical.target first or if you used direct grub parameter, then just:

reboot

5.13 Restore initramfs-tools and remove dracut (OPTIONAL step)

apt autoremove dracut
apt install firmware-misc-nonfree
apt install initramfs-tools

This should remove dracut and generate working initramfs using initramfs-tools instead of dracut.

5.14 NVIDIA Drivers Uninstall Complete and nouveau enabled