Remove Nvidia proprietary driver

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1

Hi,

I have installed the nvidia driver but want to use the nouveau driver. I followed the guide in this article: https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_drivers, but it seems the nivida did not get completely deleted.

opensuse:/home/dagr # sudo lspci -nnk | grep -iA3 VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GM204 [GeForce GTX 970] [10de:13c2] (rev a1)
        Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI] Device [1462:3160]
        Kernel driver in use: nouveau
        Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia

The kernel driver is ok, but the kernel modules seems to show nvidia prop modules is loaded as well. Most things works in plasma, but wobbly when scrolling webpages. I don’t like that. If anybody can give me some advice how to fix this I will be very happy.

Dag R

2

First,
Did you install your nVidia driver using one of the methods described in a SDB?
Then,
Did you search for NVIDIA packages as described in the “Uninstall - Zypper” section of the SDB you referenced?

TSU

3

I installed nvidia driver (the hard way) on an older computer, for openSUSE 12.3. Then I changed my mind, and decided to go back to the nouveau driver. So I uninstalled the nvidia driver.

It didn’t work. Things were broken. So I went back to the nvidia driver.

Later, with openSUSE 13.2 (same computer), I installed nvidia driver. This time I was smart, and installed from the repo. It had problems, so I decided to go back to nouveau.

I uninstalled nvidia. Since I had installed from the repo, I expected that to work. No such luck. The system was still broken.

So I did a forced reinstall of mesa. I searched for “mesa” in Yast Software Manager, and reinstalled everything that was already installed that was part of mesa.

That fixed it. Now nouveau worked as it should.

That was a while ago, with an older nvidia card. It might not apply to your situation. But it might be worth trying.

4

I understand that you are not using proprietary Nvidia drivers, is it a desktop or laptop?
Can you know the characteristics of this computer?
The Geforce Gtx 970 is well supported, and there should be no problems, the system is updated, sometimes an upgrade is needed even after installation to work properly

hwinfo --gfxcard
5

I used the yast method of adding the repository, finding the right nvidia version for my card and install it. When I uninstalled it I filtered on the nvidia repository and removed the packages. All in accordance with the article. I dobbel checked this today, and no pakages from the nvidia prop driver was there.

Dag R

6

It’s a desktop computer. Do you need some more spesific about it? Should I upgrade the nouveau driver?

dagr@opensuse:~> sudo hwinfo --gfxcard
[sudo] passord for root: 
33: PCI 100.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)             
  [Created at pci.386]
  Unique ID: VCu0.IuoTaz1A7sA
  Parent ID: _Znp.mxGZ4sT7tg6
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/0000:01:00.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:01:00.0
  Hardware Class: graphics card
  Model: "nVidia GM204 [GeForce GTX 970]"
  Vendor: pci 0x10de "nVidia Corporation"
  Device: pci 0x13c2 "GM204 [GeForce GTX 970]"
  SubVendor: pci 0x1462 "Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI]"
  SubDevice: pci 0x3160 
  Revision: 0xa1
  Driver: "nouveau"
  Driver Modules: "nouveau"
  Memory Range: 0xfd000000-0xfdffffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xc0000000-0xcfffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xd1ffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  I/O Ports: 0xe000-0xefff (rw)
  Memory Range: 0x000c0000-0x000dffff (rw,non-prefetchable,disabled)
  IRQ: 28 (3616320 events)
  Module Alias: "pci:v000010DEd000013C2sv00001462sd00003160bc03sc00i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: nouveau is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nouveau"
  Driver Info #1:
    Driver Status: nvidia_drm is not active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nvidia_drm"
  Driver Info #2:
    Driver Status: nvidia is not active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nvidia"
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #17 (PCI bridge)

Primary display adapter: #33

Dag R

7

This suggests to me the initrd may not have been rebuilt when the NVidia driver was removed.

Note that lspci reports nothing directly to do with X. That output is all about the kernel. OTOH, X has two FOSS drivers to choose between, both of which depend on proper unencumbered nouveau kernel module function. These are the (upstream default) modesetting DDX provided by the server package, and the reverse-engineered, optional, nouveau DDX, provided by the xf86-video-nouveau package.

Assuming the initrd has been rebuilt to exclude the nvidia modules, but the failure remains, I agree with nrickert’s recommendation.

8

I made a forced upgrade of the mesa packages, but i didn’t change anything. The output of sudo lspci -nnk | grep -iA3 VGA is the same, and the web scrolling is the same.

Dag R

9

Hi
Is there still a file down in /etc/modprobe.d blacklisting the nouveau driver?


fgrep -r "nouveau" /etc/modprobe.d/

If a file exists, delete the file and rebuild initrd as root user with mkinitrd.

10

Looking at your original command,
I haven’t inspected if the nVidia code is actually compiled into the initrd or as a LKM.
If the nVidia module is built as a LKM and not into the initrd,
The following is appropriate,
Note that LKM can be loaded by your system any time whether during boot or later, only feature is that it shouldn’t require something like a mkinitrd.

See the Wiki page I wrote on listing all modules and installed modules.

https://en.opensuse.org/User:Tsu2/LKM

Recommend:
Viewing all modules first to verify that your proprietary nVidia module still exists (I suspect it should be)
Then
Viewing only installed modules (nVidia should not be listed, I don’t know if nouveau would be listed if it’s built into the initrd) but the nVidia driver should not be displayed.

TSU

11

It didn’t give any output. I have also checked /etc/modprobe.d/50-blacklist.conf and it’s not any mention of nouveau there. I did the forced update of mesa, and this action rebuild the initrd?

Dag R

12

Since my last post I did a little more digging (i know it’s bad form to post before you have everything but…)

  1. Of course, Malcolm’s suggestion to check whether nouveau is blacklisted is important
  2. I think descriptions say that only a small piece of the nVidia installation requires adding to the initrd, drm_nvidia. To me, this appears to be a kind of shim to the main nVidia module which appears to be a LKM. Note that his is purely based on reading articles about the installation and not close inspection of an install itself.

Bottom line,
If Malcolm’s suggestion isn’t the reason, then my post about inspecting LKMs properly should probably apply. If I’m right, then removing the part that was installed into the initrd should not be critical, but it looks like the SDB “Installing nVidia the Hard Way” does include instructions should it be necessary.

https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_the_hard_way

BTW -
The above SDB may also contain the solution for your nVida problem (See the Configuration section).

TSU

13

I have searched through the LKMs, but it it nothing named nVidia there.

Dag R

14

Hi
Did you rebuild initrd? Did you check if nvidia exists in initrd (need to be root user)?


lsinitrd |grep nvidia
15

Looking back through previous posts, I see you had already posted that you’re using the nouveau driver, am reposting your output here

[sudo] passord for root: 33: PCI 100.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)
[Created at pci.386]
Unique ID: VCu0.IuoTaz1A7sA
Parent ID: _Znp.mxGZ4sT7tg6
SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/0000:01:00.0
SysFS BusID: 0000:01:00.0
Hardware Class: graphics card
Model: “nVidia GM204 [GeForce GTX 970]”
Vendor: pci 0x10de “nVidia Corporation”
Device: pci 0x13c2 “GM204 [GeForce GTX 970]”
SubVendor: pci 0x1462 “Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI]”
SubDevice: pci 0x3160
Revision: 0xa1
** Driver: “nouveau”
Driver Modules: “nouveau”**
Memory Range: 0xfd000000-0xfdffffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
Memory Range: 0xc0000000-0xcfffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xd1ffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
I/O Ports: 0xe000-0xefff (rw)
Memory Range: 0x000c0000-0x000dffff (rw,non-prefetchable,disabled)
IRQ: 28 (3616320 events)
Module Alias: “pci:v000010DEd000013C2sv00001462sd00003160bc03sc00i00”
Driver Info #0:
Driver Status: nouveau is active
Driver Activation Cmd: “modprobe nouveau”
Driver Info #1:
Driver Status: nvidia_drm is not active
Driver Activation Cmd: “modprobe nvidia_drm”
Driver Info #2:
Driver Status: nvidia is not active
Driver Activation Cmd: “modprobe nvidia”
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
Attached to: #17 (PCI bridge)
Primary display adapter: #33

So,
What I suggested only confirmed…

I’m not clear what else you may be asking about?

TSU

16

Here is the output:

drwxr-xr-x   1 root     root            0 Jan 27 22:31 lib/firmware/nvidia
drwxr-xr-x   1 root     root            0 Jan 27 22:31 lib/firmware/nvidia/gm200
drwxr-xr-x   1 root     root            0 Jan 27 22:31 lib/firmware/nvidia/gm200/acr
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root          832 Jan  8 18:04 lib/firmware/nvidia/gm200/acr/bl.bin
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root        10144 Jan  8 18:04 lib/firmware/nvidia/gm200/acr/ucode_load.bin
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root         1440 Jan  8 18:04 lib/firmware/nvidia/gm200/acr/ucode_unload.bin
etc

-rw-r--r--   1 root     root       105240 Jan 27 22:32 lib/modules/4.12.14-lp151.28.36-default/updates/nvidia-drm.ko
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root     27642512 Jan 27 22:32 lib/modules/4.12.14-lp151.28.36-default/updates/nvidia.ko
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root      1479136 Jan 27 22:32 lib/modules/4.12.14-lp151.28.36-default/updates/nvidia-modeset.ko
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root      1846928 Jan 27 22:32 lib/modules/4.12.14-lp151.28.36-default/updates/nvidia-uvm.ko

There was a whole lot of other lines lib/firmware/nvidia. The editor did not allow me to paste more than. 15.000 caracters.

Dag

17

My question is why the nouveau driver is not working properly (wobbly webpages), and my thesis is that maybe not all of the proprietary nVidia driver is purged. Maybe it is something else wrong. I only try to avoid reinstalling the whole system.

Dag

18

Post:

zypper se -si nvidia

zypper lr -d
19

Something I should have mentioned in an earlier post:

If you have added the nvidia repo, and installed drivers from there then:

if you then remove the driver, it will be reinstalled when you are not paying attention. You have to disable the nvida repo to prevent this.

20

My understanding of how things are supposed to work is that there is supposed to be a kind of switch… For a particular display device you would switch between one module and another, if the switch is written correctly, then you can’t experience a mixing and matching… the code for the two drivers just aren’t written in a way that anything from the other can be accessed even accidentally.

So,
Assuming things are working as they should, your speculation can’t happen.

But,
As I noted,
the SDB I referenced seems to describe how to fix problems I think you described in your original post(s) were your reasons for even installing the nVidia driver in the first place.
So, unless you originally ran nouveau before installing the nVidia driver so you know that the nouveau driver won’t cause those problems and you agree those problems are described in the SDB, I’d think you should consider re-installing the nVidia driver and trying those configuration changes described in the SDB

TSU