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I'm switching my AMD GPU (R9 270X) for an Nvidia GPU (GTX 960 SSC). I currently have Ubuntu 14.04 installed and the proprietary AMD drivers (version 15.12). I'd like to know what is the correct procedure to switch cards. Should I:

  1. Unninstall the AMD driver, then change the GPU, boot up and install the Nvidia driver?

or

  1. Switch the GPU, boot up, unninstall the AMD driver and then install the Nvidia driver?

ANy help is apreciated, thanks :)

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First you want to uninstall the AMD Drivers.

Swap your cards then reboot.

For best results with Nvidia you will want to boot into your oldest kernel and install. If you don't, you may have a hard time booting into older kernels if you ever need to. Nvidia driver will only install into the kernel you boot and newer kernels, by booting into your old kernels the drivers will install into all kernels.

You may need to set the nomodeset option to boot successfully for the first time. This is only necessary if you can only boot to a black screen. If so:

  1. use the arrow keys to highlight the kernel you want to boot into
  2. Press e to edit the boot setting
  3. In the long lines of text you will see "quiet splash" about half down, use the down arrow keys to get to the start of the line then the right arrow key to move past it.
  4. enter nomodeset just behind "quiet splash"
  5. press F10 to boot into the kernel using the modified settings(this will only affect this boot the settings will return to normal on next boot.

Note: according to this answer you should use nouveau.modeset=0 instead of nomodeset on 15.10, no mention is made of 14.04 but 14.04.04 uses the 15.10 graphics stack so you may need to use that setting if nomodeset fails

I borrowed the following from the linked answer as a copy and paste rather than type it out as it would apply to your card.

Generally it is recommended to use the NVIDIA drivers from the official Ubuntu repositories. But as you have very new graphics hardware, you can install the latest official NVIDIA drivers. The xorg-edgers PPA does not provide the drivers anymore and was replaced by GPU Drivers.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-361
sudo reboot  

If you wish to use the above ppa, install it before installing the Nvidia drivers to prevent a re-install.

The driver team is excellent at getting the new builds uploaded within days of release. The only thing you may need to be cautious of is that the ppa will recommend the newest versions, even if they are betas, in the "additional drivers" window so I always keep an eye on the Nvidia page I linked above to see what the current stable release is. I personally tend to avoid beta versions unless I'm trying to fix a bug, however Nvidia's betas tend to be pretty stable so you may wish to use them.

One final thought, if you use Steam Source games, Nvidia 361 drivers had a regression that prevented source games from starting. There is a workaround but it is easier to just stick with the 352 drivers or install the 364 drivers, the ppa currently has 364.12 which is a beta but Nvidia released 364.42 a couple of days ago that are not beta and will be uploaded to the ppa soon(I have noticed no issues with the beta version) see Nvidia's site for more

As an aside, some people get tempted to use the drivers directly from Nvidia's website when the run into issues rather than wait for the ppa to be updated, that is strongly advised against, the ppa repacks them so that new kernels do not crash the Nvidia drivers and require a reinstall every time a kernel is updated, it also prevents other possible conflicts as well.

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    Thanks to @cl-netbox for the info from his answer that I included(cannibalized), copy and paste was much easier and I don't want to do any more work than necessary.
    – TrailRider
    Apr 2, 2016 at 16:18
  • Thanks for the detailed info :) I'll give a try as soon as my new card arrives. Apr 2, 2016 at 16:22
  • @BenjamimLinhares I would suspect that nomodeset will not be needed if you are installing the newer versions of 14.04 (I did not need it when installing 14.04.03 on my new computer but I did when I installed a new card into my old computer with the original 14.04, I beleive) but I included the info in case.
    – TrailRider
    Apr 2, 2016 at 16:26
  • I appreciate, I currently have 14.04.4 :) Apr 2, 2016 at 18:13

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