Completely unable to uninstall broken nvidia drivers :( [19.04 - KDE]

Question

During an update, my nvidia drivers were completely broken and I've been unable to uninstall the broken ones and reinstall new ones. GPU is the Quadro K2100M (GK106GLM). Ubuntu version is 19.04 Machine is the Dell Precision M4800.

when I run " sudo apt --purge autoremove nvidia* " I get this ( https://i.imgur.com/oLGTWxn.jpg )

When I run "apt --fix-broken install" I get this ( https://i.imgur.com/OP1bmbD.jpg )

lsmod | grep nvidia returns this ( https://i.imgur.com/4YODZCx.jpg )

sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall returns this ( https://i.imgur.com/IA65W18.jpg )

I'm at a loss, all tutorials I can find online referring to how to remove broken nvidia drivers doesn't seem to be effective. Can anyone help? apt-autoremove hasn't helped either :( I have tried downloading the .run installer from nvidia's site to no avil, claiming it cannot build the kernel module.

Thanks to the broken packages, I cannot apt install, apt remove, apt dist-upgrade, or anything of that sort :/

Edit: "sudo apt clean" and "sudo apt autoclean" have not helped

Answer 1

Hopefully this will fix your error, but beware that what I've done was an action that needs much more insight into your system than I currently have. I've got the same error that there are links left by another driver. Search for a crash log like nvidia-340.0.crash. Save this if you have one.

After uninstalling the driver package dependencies. Double-check that all files of the package and its dependencies are gone. Update your system, anything that's blocking an update is now your target. Remove those packages with apt-get, dpkg only if all other options are gone.

Done a update? OK, now search in your crash log for the end of the driver installation. There might be an list of packages installed as dependency. Search in dpkg-divert --list <your driver package name e.g. nvidia-340> there might be a list of files linked to different locations. Now be careful removing those links might result in no graphical interface/boot at all if done wrong. Unlink these files that are blocking your installation. Install your new driver. Relist the files of your old driver. Remove the links. Reinstall your driver and double-check that there are no more remaining files of your old driver. Be careful not to remove files of your current driver.

This is an risky action! Do this only if you know what your doing and you need to keep this system, or else do an reinstall. This would result in a much cleaner environment than this.