Latest update broke nvidia...

[naviathan]

I'm not sure why this is constantly an issue, but it seems like every single time I update and get a kernel update it tries to ditch my nvidia driver and install nouveau. If I wanted nouveau I would install nouvea, now I cant get rid of it. After the latest update (I've been dealing with this for a few days now so latest is relative) my system boots to a black screen. The monitor shows an input, but there's no mouse cursor, desktop, etc... The system is running. I can't seem to ctrl+alt+F1 to any other consoles, but if I pull up screenconnect from another computer I can send commands through the limited command interface. Looking at my Xorg log it appears Xorg is looking for nouveau even though nvidia is installed and the module is loaded. I also notices that libdrm-nouveau2 is installed and if I try to remove it it tries to uninstall Xorg. I tried reinstalling nvidia-331-updates, but it does nothing. This has happened before but reinstalling nvidia would bring it back up again. HELP!

[Pilot6]

How did you install nvidia driver?

[naviathan]

apt-get -y --reinstall install nvidia-331-updates

[tokyobadger]

I'm not sure why this is constantly an issue, but it seems like every single time I update and get a kernel update it tries to ditch my nvidia driver and install nouveau.

What versions of Ubuntu?
What's your hardware?
How did you install nvidia drivers?
What kernel are you running?
Has this pattern been occurring since installation/upgrade or did it start at a specific point in time after?

[naviathan]

Xubuntu 14.10
Kernel 3.16.0-30-generic
nvidia GTX 560 Ti
This problem started happening about 6 months ago. Everytime I would get a kernel update I would have to drop to a maintenance console and reinstall the nvidia drivers (apt-get -y --reinstall install nvidia-331-updates).

[tokyobadger]

Thanks for the info
Is that GTX560Ti the full-fat or the clipped OEM version (384 vs 352 CUDA cores)?
Kernel 3.16.0-30-generic vs my just (ie after reading your reply) updated Ubuntu 14.10 with 3.16.0-29-generic - do you have proposed switched on or did you install that kernel manually?

You might want to consider purging your drivers entirely and then installing again.
Another option would be again to purge the drivers and then install 346.35 from the xorg-edgers ppa

[naviathan]

Full fledged 560Ti, not OEM.

I tried Xorg-Edgers one time and it was a nightmare. I may have proposed on and not realized it.

[tokyobadger]

Try the purge install first and see what that gets you.

The xorg-edgers ppa is pretty smooth in the last 12 months or more and frankly the best "ubuntu way" (ie no manual downloads) to get the latest drivers, but I wouldn't go there until your base system is fixed

[naviathan]

No luck with the purge install. I purged both nouveau* and nvidia* then installed just nvidia-current and rebooted. Still no display.I did notice it's also loading the i915 display driver for my embedded GPU in the i5-2500k.

[Yellow Pasque]

and install nouveau. If I wanted nouveau I would install nouveau, now I cant get rid of it

You don't need to uninstall any nouveau packages; you just need to blacklist the nouveau kernel module (and the nvidia or nvidia-updates packages does that for you automatically).

It sounds like something is not right with dkms. The next time you get a kernel update and have a problem, you should look for nvidia logs in /var/lib/dkms/

I'm also wondering whether this was a fresh install of 14.10 or if you upgraded from an older release. If you upgraded from an older release, you may have older kernels hanging around and causing problems.