Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint / LMDE NVIDIA Drivers Uninstall Guide
Table of Contents
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.