Ubuntu 13.10 problems with NVidia graphics drivers, XServer not going up

Question

I had problem with running Age of Empires II on wine. It was showing some problem with loading some NVidia file (I cannot make this error again), and was suggesting using Nouveau drivers, even if I was using them.

I decided to reinstall the NVidia drivers, and install the newest one. I used that tutorial: http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-Install-the-Latest-NVIDIA-331-20-Drivers-in-Ubuntu-13-10-399182.shtml .

After installation and reboot, my XServer was not going up anymore. Using the console I removed all the nvidia drivers : sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*. With that, the system is working again, but the resolution is low.

After that, I removed repository from that tutorial, and installed the nvidia drivers again, but it happens every time - the XServer is not going up, and I need to remove NVidia drivers.

What can I do?

ADDITIONAL INFO: when I try to install nvidia-current drivers with apt-get, I get that info: Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies. nvidia-current : Depends: xorg-video-abi-11 but it is not installable or xorg-video-abi-12 but it is not installable or xorg-video-abi-13 but it is not installable Recommends: nvidia-settings-current but it is not installable E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

After installing it with aptitude the effect is as I described before.

Answer 1

If you want your nouveau driver back, you should be aware that is may have been blacklisted when updating to other driver packages designed for Nvidia. You should take a look in

etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-graphics-drivers.conf

and see if nouveau driver is already blacklisted. Check all other 'graphic..conf' files inside etc/modprobe.d/ to see if nouveau driver is present and blacklisted ( that is if you can't find the original 'nvidia-graphics-drivers.conf' file to be present). If that is the case, then you should edit the file(s). and remove the lines where NOUVEAU driver is present. All you have to do is to remove nvidia drivers using that code you mentioned:

sudo apt-get remove nvidia*

and after that to install NOUVEAU driver using code:

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

But I suggest that you better try to download one or more linux drivers for your video card from NVIDIA website, and test them after removing all other Nvidia drivers and extra modules, and after you blacklist the nouveau driver and a few others.

Use this link to learn how to download and install Nvidia drivers from the NVIDIA website, and never again use that nouveau driver or other proprietary drivers. Choose your graphic card when going to Nvidia website to find a decent driver for it, and not Nvidia GTS 450 mentioned in the above provided link. Same routine, but with a different graphic card.