How to install Nvidia drivers on Kubuntu 16.10

By | July 27, 2020

Install Nvidia drivers

Installing Nvidia drivers, like always, can be a little bit tricky. I installed the ones from the default repository, but they did not work and the system went into a blank screen.

1. Check and find out your graphics card model

The first thing to do is find out your gpu chipset, so that the correct driver can be selected. Run the lspci command as shown below and you would see some output.

lspci -vnn | grep VGA -A 12
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] [10de:0a65] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: ZOTAC International (MCO) Ltd. GT218 [GeForce 210] [19da:1160]
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 29
        Memory at e2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
        I/O ports at 2000 [size=128]
        Expansion ROM at 000c0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: nouveau
        Kernel modules: nvidiafb, nouveau

In the above output the gpu is GeForce 210. In the next step we use this information to find out the correct driver.

The kernel driver in use is nouveau, which is the open source driver for using nvidia cards.

2. Check the correct driver number first

Don't just install the nvidia-current package hastily. If your card is old, then the latest nvidia drivers will not work it and cause a black blank screen after boot.

First, find out the correct driver version for your card. Visit the following site and fill in the details of your graphics card and submit.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx

The site will tell you the current version of driver to use. In my case its version 340.102
So I shall be installing the package named "nvidia-340".

3. Setup the graphics-drivers ppa and install the drivers

First setup the graphics-drivers ppa. It has newer builds of the nvidia drivers.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt update

Now install the nvidia driver.

sudo apt-get install nvidia-340

It will automatically installed and setup everything. Once it has finished, restart your system.
You can also go to "System Settings > Hardware > Driver Manager" and install from there.

4. Check the installed drivers

After the system starts successfully, you can check the information about the nvidia drivers and the graphics card as well.

Run the previous lspci command again -

lspci -vnn | grep VGA -A 12
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] [10de:0a65] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: ZOTAC International (MCO) Ltd. GT218 [GeForce 210] [19da:1160]
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 30
        Memory at e2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
        I/O ports at 2000 [size=128]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at 000c0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: nvidia
        Kernel modules: nvidiafb, nouveau, nvidia_340

Now the Kernel driver in use is nvidia. This shows that the nvidia drivers are being used for graphics display.

Check if chromium/chrome is using hardware acceleration

Open the following url and check the information -

chrome://gpu/

It would show detailed information about whether hardware acceleration or software rendering is being used in various places.

If it does not work

It might so happen that the driver did not work, and then you would get a blank black screen on booting the system. Then you have to remove the driver and get back to the previous driver.

Boot into the Ubuntu recovery console. Run the following command to make the root partition writable.

mount -o remount,rw /

Now remove the nvidia drivers with the following command

sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-*

Restart system, and the nouvea drivers should work again. Check the following link for more information -
http://askubuntu.com/questions/41681/blank-screen-after-installing-nvidia-restricted-driver

About Silver Moon

A Tech Enthusiast, Blogger, Linux Fan and a Software Developer. Writes about Computer hardware, Linux and Open Source software and coding in Python, Php and Javascript. He can be reached at [email protected].

3 Comments

How to install Nvidia drivers on Kubuntu 16.10
  1. Vivek Kumar

    Hi

    On my Dell laptop, there are 2 graphic cards.

    1. How can I manage these 2 graphics?
    2. Is both these graphics card work simultaneously?
    3. Can I install the latest driver mentioned in the steps below?

    From Nvidia website it is showing the below driver version for my Nividia Graphic Card model

    _____________________________________________________________
    Linux x64 (AMD64/EM64T) Display Driver

    Version: 375.66
    Release Date: 2017.5.4
    Operating System: Linux 64-bit
    Language: English (US)
    File Size: 71.62 MB
    _____________________________________________________________

    Below it output os lspci command
    ____________________________________________________________________________________
    04:00.0 3D controller [0302]: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 750M] [10de:0fe4] (rev a1)
    Subsystem: Dell GK107M [GeForce GT 750M] [1028:05fa]
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 44
    Memory at e2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
    Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
    Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
    I/O ports at 3000 [size=128]
    Expansion ROM at [disabled]
    Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 3
    Capabilities: [68] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
    Capabilities: [78] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
    Capabilities: [b4] Vendor Specific Information: Len=14
    Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel
    Capabilities: [128] Power Budgeting
    Capabilities: [600] Vendor Specific Information: ID=0001 Rev=1 Len=024
    Capabilities: [900] #19
    Kernel driver in use: nouveau
    Kernel modules: nvidiafb, nouveau
    ____________________________________________________________________________________

    00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0a16] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
    Subsystem: Dell Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller [1028:05fa]
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 45
    Memory at e3000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
    Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
    I/O ports at 5000 [size=64]
    [virtual] Expansion ROM at 000c0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
    Capabilities: [90] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
    Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2
    Capabilities: [a4] PCI Advanced Features
    Kernel driver in use: i915
    Kernel modules: i915
    ____________________________________________________________________________________

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