Ubuntu 11.10 - How to completly remove nvidia drivers, restore default. No gui

firekage · 05-27-2012, 04:37 AM

Hi.

Again i have to ask for Your help. I propably destroyed my ubuntu system when i tought about changing drivers.

I had 180.13 and linux-headers 3.0.0.16, now i have 295.53 and linux-headers 3.1. I use ubuntu 11.10 with GTX260 from nvidia.

I removed nvidia drivers, propably removed nouveau, i propably even removed x system because after installation of nvidia drivers i don't have gui, it can't enter the gui, unity. I see Ubuntu logo with orange dots - progress bar - and after it, it switch off to a terminal mode, where i see couple of infos (like: clamav starts and so on) but there is no gui. Top command doesen't show that xorg is in use.

Only thing that i could do is boot trough generic-pae-save options, and enter terminal.

I have installed drivers from repo, but when i put command :

glxinfo

i got message that there is no display!

Can somebody help me to fix it? I loved ubuntu, i don't want to install it again, configure and than again read a lot about software and ppa that i have now

I would like You to tell me how to completly fix x system in Ubuntu, how to install nvidia drivers, before it how to install/restore noveau drivers and install linux-headers/images if my are broken.

Please...I've been gighting with it since 20:00, now its 5:00 at clock! As a matter of fact when i boot it from generic-pae it hungs up at booting with logo and orange dots below with purple background - nothing happens, i cant even hit keys to kill x, and enter terminal - i can do it only trough booting generic-pae-safeoptions.

How to remove all x drivers, than install it again: noveau, x, nvidia, and how to istall new working kernel?

If i had known that changing drivers in ubuntu would be such a pain i wouldn't even try it.

RockDoctor · 05-28-2012, 06:36 AM

Can't speak to Ubuntu specifically, but with Fedora, whenever I've wanted to replace the nvidia driver with the nouveau driver, I've had to reinstall all the mesa files also.

firekage · 05-28-2012, 03:31 PM

I think that i should do the same, but i'm not sure, and i don't know what packages from mesa are for nouveau. On Slackware i had package that were called something similar to mesa, and there wasn't problem with that, but with Ubuntu software is installed either trough synaptic or terminal, in synaptic we have only package that could be calles as a "libs", when in terminal we give only command to install all software with dependancies so if i put sudo apt-get install firefox, for an example, i don't know which part should be, for an example, reinstalled if something gone wrong - in this case if i remove nouveau i don't know what to do in order to restore all X, xorg, nouveau.

273 · 05-28-2012, 04:11 PM

Personally I'd start by installing xserver-xorg-video-nouveau and see whether it pulled anything else in. Then if you want the desktop back install ubuntu-desktop and that should take care of any dependencies.
Once that's been done see whether anything else is missing.

firekage · 05-28-2012, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 273

Personally I'd start by installing xserver-xorg-video-nouveau and see whether it pulled anything else in. Then if you want the desktop back install ubuntu-desktop and that should take care of any dependencies.
Once that's been done see whether anything else is missing.

After installation of xserver-xorg-video-nouveau, still there is nothing [:|] Computer was booted, i saw ubuntu logo with orange dots and that's all - i saw that logo disappeared, than something was switching monitor/x and after switching monitor/x i still haven't had gui and couldn't enter ubuntu. For an example, where it stops i attached image.

BTW - in order to install ubuntu desktop, i use unity, i need only to put in terminal

Code:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

??

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/3751/dsc00252s.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

273 · 05-28-2012, 04:25 PM

I can't tell from that what is happening but assuming it tries to start X you should remove /etc/X11/xorg.conf if it exists.
To look for nvidia packages you've missed try:

Code:

dpkg --get-selections |grep nvidia

then you can remove what you see (googling if you're not sure that they can all go).
Yes, unless they've created a new name when they changed to Unity and I can't find it, to restore Ubuntu's desktop environment you should just be able to install ubuntu-desktop. There should be one package which has all the required dependencies for the desktop environment.

firekage · 05-30-2012, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 273

I can't tell from that what is happening but assuming it tries to start X you should remove /etc/X11/xorg.conf if it exists.
To look for nvidia packages you've missed try:

Code:

dpkg --get-selections |grep nvidia

then you can remove what you see (googling if you're not sure that they can all go).
Yes, unless they've created a new name when they changed to Unity and I can't find it, to restore Ubuntu's desktop environment you should just be able to install ubuntu-desktop. There should be one package which has all the required dependencies for the desktop environment.

Code:

firekage@deusex:~$ dpkg --get-selections | grep nvidia
nvidia-common					install
nvidia-current					install
nvidia-current-updates				install
nvidia-settings					install
nvidia-settings-updates				install

273 · 05-30-2012, 11:19 AM

Looks like you can safely apt-get remove them all also.

firekage · 05-30-2012, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 273

Looks like you can safely apt-get remove them all also.

If i remove them, what next in order to have drivers, gui? I have to

Code:

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

and that's all? If i remove it than, i think so, i won't have display at all.

273 · 05-30-2012, 11:52 AM

I think the packages are just meta-packages and support packages anyhow so it looks like you are not running the nvidia drivers right now.
Yes, just install those and you ought to have everything you need. If there is something missing it shouldn't stop you booting to console anyhow.