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Since I had driver problems with nouveau on my Thinkpad (flickering external monitor on docking station) I switched to nvidia-390 and also to nvidia-396 both without success (didn't even recognize the external screen on docking station).

Now I want to switch back to nouveau since then at least the external monitor worked if I connect it via mini-dp.

However I cannot switch back anymore. I did the following steps:

  • sudo apt-get purge '*-nvidia-*'
  • removed /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf (which I created when installing nvidia)
  • sudo update-initramfs -u
  • sudo reinstall xserver-xorg-core libgl1-mesa-glx xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
  • There was no /etc/X11/xorg.conf to remove or to modify
  • reboot

However then lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 vga returns that 

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09)
    Subsystem: Lenovo 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [17aa:21f5]
    Kernel driver in use: i915
--
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GK107GLM [Quadro K2000M] [10de:0ffb] (rev a1)
    Subsystem: Lenovo GK107GLM [Quadro K2000M] [17aa:21f5]
    Kernel modules: nvidiafb, nouveau

I.e. additionally to nouveau there seems to be nvidiafb active. Then I tried to blacklist nvidiafb without success.

I also tried to disable framebuffer as described in the arch wiki also without success.

The problem is that this configuration doesn't recognize any external monitor even on mini-dp. I just realized that even VGA doesn't work.

Any idea of how I can make it work?

Are there any settings or files I should check to diagnose the cause of the problem?

student
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  • Looks like you did successfully revert to nouveau, not sure why the title says "can't revert...". The question makes no sense as is. – mikewhatever Sep 09 '18 at 09:12
  • @mikewhatever I thought that `lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 vga` should outpout only nouveau in the last line and not nvidiafb. Or is nvidiafb correct in this case? – student Sep 09 '18 at 10:17
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    The point is that before I tested nvidia the external screen worked via mini-dp and nouveau driver. After my attempt to revert to nouveau this doesn't work anymore. So the reversion doesn't work as expected. – student Sep 09 '18 at 10:19
  • Does this answer your question? [Can you reverse 'ubuntu-drivers autoinstall'?](https://askubuntu.com/questions/1410298/can-you-reverse-ubuntu-drivers-autoinstall) – karel May 03 '23 at 02:32

1 Answers1

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You should uninstall completely the nvidia driver.

sudo apt autoremove *nvidia-*

Be careful what dependencies are removed before validating the uninstall !!

ob2
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  • I already did `sudo apt-get purge '*-nvidia-*'. I also tried your command but it didn't remove anymore packages. By the way I think you need to use quotes, i.e. `'*nvidia-*'` to make expansion work. At least for my system this is the case. – student Sep 09 '18 at 07:57