CentOS Stream 9/8, Red Hat (RHEL) 9.0/8.5, Rocky Linux 8.5 Uninstall NVIDIA drivers and Enable Nouveau

5. CentOS Stream 9/8, Red Hat (RHEL) 9.0/8.5, Rocky Linux 8.5 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 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 Edit /etc/default/grub⌗

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

## Example row with Fedora 35/34/33 BTRFS ##
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rhgb quiet"
## Or example row with LVM ##
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rd.lvm.lv=fedora/swap rd.lvm.lv=fedora/root rhgb quiet"

5.9 Update grub2 conf⌗

## BIOS ##
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
## UEFI CentOS Stream 9/8 ##
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/centos/grub.cfg
## UEFI Red Hat (RHEL) 9.0/8.5 ##
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg
## UEFI Rocky Linux 8.5 ##
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/rocky/grub.cfg

5.10 Generate initramfs⌗

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

5.11 Reinstall xorg, mesa and libglvnd packages⌗

## CentOS Stream, RHEL, Rocky Linux ##
dnf reinstall xorg-\* mesa\* libglvnd\*

5.12 Reboot⌗

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

reboot

5.14 NVIDIA Drivers Uninstall Complete and nouveau enabled⌗