Ubuntu – How to uninstall Nvidia proprietary drivers?

nvidiafb is a framebuffer driver inside the Linux Kernel. Is not the proprietary module from nvidia. (nvidia.ko).

If you want to see the short description of the module, issue the following command in terminal

modinfo nvidiafb | grep description

If you want to read more a about framebuffer , read the FrambeBuffer on Ubuntu Wiki.

You can see if some nvidia package is installed by applying the following command

dpkg -l | grep -i nvidia

If you want to search if the nouveau module is loaded you can apply

lsmod | grep nouveau

If nvidia restricted module was loaded , then the nouveau module Cannot be loaded too (conflict each other).

Nvidia's (restricted) module name is nvidia . Not nvidiafb or something similar.

Also you can search from Additional Drivers page . In example below , no proprietary drivers are in use

And another command that can show you, which driver is in use:

lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 vga 

There you will see a line like

kernel driver in use: *****

If it's nvidia , then you have nvidia driver installed and in use. If it's nouveau, then you don't.

On some computers the new versions that are installed with the intel-linux-graphics-installer have those exact same issues, I had it happen with two netbooks so it dosn't seem to be a conflict between nouveau/intel but a problem with the newer graphics installed from Intel.

1. First you need to remove the source that Intel installed automatically when you ran the installer. To do this go to Software Center → Edit → Software Sources → Other Software and uncheck the sources that have https://download.01.org/ in the address.

2. Next do a sudo apt-get update then we are going to follow steps from this post: https://askubuntu.com/a/405453/47291 do:

   nano /tmp/a_p
   

   And paste the following text:

   Package: *
   Pin: release a=*-backports
   Pin-Priority: 100
   
   Package: *
   Pin: release n=*
   Pin-Priority: 1001
   

   Now save with Ctrl+o and exit

3. Now enter this command:

   sudo apt-get -o Dir::Etc::Preferences=/tmp/a_p dist-upgrade
   

4. Reboot