Reinstall NVIDIA drivers for Ubuntu 16.04

Owned by Joey Houy (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Nov 07, 2018

In case someone updates the Kernel on their Linux OS. It is not advised to update the packages on Linux OS unless completely necessary for your work. 

Step-by-step guide

Before you move on from this point, make sure to check if your NVIDIA driver is working using:

nvidia-smi

If it reports anything other than the status/readings of your installed graphics card, it needs to be re-installed; or to boot from an earlier kernel depending how much was done after the initial update/change to your system/OS.

If you have the NVIDIA .run file already

If Exxact originally provided the NVIDIA driver installation, it can be found in either the '/root' or '/home' directory.

# login/change to root permissions
sudo bash
service lightdm stop
./NVIDIA* [tab to fill in the rest]
# accept terms, and answer 'no' to everything else

If it fails to install, then it is possible something beyond updating the kernel was performed that may have installed conflicting packages that will prevent the NVIDIA driver from installing using our typical '.run' file method.


If you need to re-obtain or update the the NVIDIA driver

  • Helps if you do this via SSH from another system to copy/paste the link when using the 'wget' command
  • Requires that you know what Graphics card is installed (the command 'lspci | grep -i NVIDIA' might help identify the model# if you are remote; not guaranteed) 
  1. Visit NVIDIA's driver search website and search for the driver


  2. Click 'download'
  3. Right-click on the 'download' button here, and 'Copy link address' 


  4. On the target computer that needs the NVIDIA driver '.run' file; run this command to download the file from NVIDIA's website:

    # This is an example, please do not just copy/paste the exact contents below... It may not be the correct driver for YOUR graphics card installed
wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/410.73/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-410.73.run

  5. Make the file executable using 'chmod +x'

    # This is an example, please do not just copy/paste the exact contents below... It may not be the correct driver for YOUR graphics card installed
chmod +x http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/410.73/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-410.73.run

  6. Disable any GUI-related processes and execute the file

    # login/change to root permissions
sudo bash
service lightdm stop
./NVIDIA* [tab to fill in the rest]
# accept terms, and answer 'no' to everything else

If it still does not work

# This is an example, please do not just copy/paste the exact 'nvidia-xxx' below... It may not be the correct driver for YOUR graphics card installed
# Check the version you need to install (what does the specific version start with? i.e.: nvidia-367, or nvidia-390)

# login/change to root permissions
sudo bash
systemctl stop lightdm.service
apt-get -y remove nvidia*
add-apt-repository -y ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
apt-get update && apt-get -y install nvidia-410
reboot

If you need to remove prior NVIDIA installation

Please be careful what you remove. This may also remove CUDA or prevent you from re-installing NVIDIA drivers.

sudo apt purge nvidia-*

Additionally, the links below elaborate on removing proprietary NVIDIA driver in Ubuntu:


If you are having issues with installing the NVIDIA drivers, or your GUI is broken (like if you need to do 'ctrl+alt+F2 or F3' to get to a working command line), you may want to boot to an earlier kernel and try to remove the newest one since it may have been created when the system was altered/updated.
http://karlcode.owtelse.com/blog/2017/03/13/reverting-to-a-previous-kernel/