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I am using the official nVidia driver because my card (GeForce 750 Ti) isn't yet supported by the Ubuntu one. Every time the kernel updates, my system breaks.

I've formatted my system two-three times because of kernel updates and today I decided to try to fix it. I tried to fix it with this method and surprisingly it works.

  1. Switch to console (After waiting for the nVidia driver to crash, as it does when you switch consoles :p)

  2. Run a complete uninstall

    sudo ./<DRIVER>.run -uninstall

  3. Reboot and switch to the on-board card

  4. Update

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

  5. Reboot again

  6. Reinstall driver

    sudo ./<DRIVER>.run

  7. Reboot and switch back to the NVIDIA GPU

Is there a better/easier/faster way to update without going through all this?

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  • Try with sudo apt-get install nvidia-common without difficult running and compilings. this driver is for Nvidia cards. You can also install the accelerated driver as sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
    – user308564
    Jul 6, 2014 at 11:10
  • @user300200 would this work for non supported cards? I don't think so.
    – user36976
    Jul 6, 2014 at 11:11
  • updated the answer.
    – user308564
    Jul 6, 2014 at 11:14

1 Answer 1

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  • After 1st boot failure and switching to console (Ctrl+Alt+F1 or any to F6).

    1. Build driver modules for the current kernel (which just installed)

      sudo sh ./<DRIVER>.run -K

    2. Reboot:

      sudo reboot

    No need to reboot multiple times and switch adapters.

    Reference: Ubuntu Wiki: Nvidia Manual - Kernel and Mesa Updates

  • To be complete, For driver release >=304 it is possible to register its module to DKMS. DKMS will take care of building it for each newly installed kernel.

    1. Install DKMS (For some reasons, it may not be installed already)

      sudo apt-get install dkms

    2. Reinstall nVidia driver with DKMS option.

      sudo sh ./<DRIVER>.run --dkms

    After this, it should be no need to redo the steps above any more. A way to verify/check after new kernel install:

    dkms status

    References:

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  • Small question, does this method also apply to updating the driver itself? Aka if I run -K from a new version of the driver will it be installed or do I need to uninstall and reinstall in this case?
    – user36976
    Aug 1, 2014 at 21:41
  • @Nick, sorry to be late I've just got access to Internet. As I have tried nVidia driver before, the installation process checks to previous/old installation then removes them before carrying on to install the newer version. You should run installation without -K option.
    – user.dz
    Sep 8, 2014 at 20:38
  • 1
    I already figured out that running the old binary with the --update param installs the latest version
    – user36976
    Sep 8, 2014 at 22:11
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    I just installed nvidia-340 on trusty (actually Mint 17.2) and it registered itself with DKMS as part of the install. No extra steps required.
    – Tom Saleeba
    Aug 11, 2015 at 11:26
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    My driver is reported in 'dkms status', yet I still need to reinstall with each new kernel. I have the driver from the graphics-drivers ppa :(
    – W. Goeman
    Jun 18, 2016 at 16:27

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