My guess is that the driver was installed from the Lenovo oem repository. Since it is only available for 22.04 after you upgraded to 24.04 it is no longer there so the driver you have installed becomes a “manually installed” driver just like you would if you download and install a .deb from the internet But apt should be able to remove it just like it could remove a standalone .deb file even though it doesn’t have meta info about it.
going to this link, I first try the command the OP there issued to see the conflict. He got:
$ sudo dmesg
[ 348.574962] NVRM: API mismatch: the client has the version 470.86, but
NVRM: this kernel module has the version 390.157. Please
NVRM: make sure that this kernel module and all NVIDIA driver
NVRM: components have the same version.
running the same command but grepping for ‘NVRM’ since all the offending lines he found had that substring, I get, simply
~$ sudo dmesg | grep NVRM
[sudo] password for scohen:
[ 6.963783] NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 535.183.01 Sun May 12 19:39:15 UTC 2024
So …
in my case, no API mismatch.
What does this tell us?
that monkeybrain didn’t tell you to just look for the removal commands in that thread
It was pretty much the same find call you have been using above but with a -delete option added … which, as you can see from your list would have been rather fatal to blindly call since it would have removed the nvidia bits of the ubuntu-drivers tool that is needed to install the new drivers later on …
Oh, yeah, I am firmly in the gathering information phase. I am not planning to delete anything found unless I have a reasonable degree of confidence that it is likely to succeed.
Do you have a recommendation as to which of these files should be deleted, and more importantly, what state my system will be in when I do. (E.G, command line only?). If that would be the case, I would like to know in advance what commands I should use to get back out of that situation.
Use my adjusted command (the one that starts with for), it should only list files that are not part of a package and should be relatively safe …
Once you deleted that stuff you will definitely end up without GUI and be on a pure CLI system … you should then use the ubuntu-drivers tool to install the right driver …
Note that this forum works really well on mobile phones so if you have a smartphone you should still be able to read and post here …
Right, but my question is more basic. If the dmesg output of @monkeybrain’s link’s OP revealed that there was a version conflict on his system and my dmesg output revealed no such conflict, aren’t we talking about two different problems unlikely to have similar solutions?
well, the question is how to remove orphan nvidia drivers for which you do not have the .run file anymore and that do not come from a .deb package … the thread has a solution (despite one that removes more than it should) regardless of what the issue was the other person wanted to solve …
two different issues for sure, similar solutions though
But the puzzle is how it gets there in the first place. Since installing from a .run file takes deliberate work and you said you haven’t done it I believe you.
If not the .run file it must be a .deb. and from your output it is possible from Lenovo’s repository which doesn’t support 24.04. So when you upgraded from 22.04 without removing the driver it becomes orphaned like just some random .deb you installed as far as the system is concerned.
But apt should be able remove it all the same. So forget the Nvidia forum link just run 1fallen’s command.
If apt could do it, ubuntu-drivers (and the GUI tool) would have been able to do that too … that driver does not seem to come from any .deb … I know the thread is long (70 posts already) but read the start of it, we went through all this above already …
So, some, I’m prettty sure not all, of these files should be deleted. Would you care to suggest which ones should be deleted?
Am I right in guessing that those files with 6.8.0-52 in their names are from the 24.04 release and those with 6.5.0-1022 are from the original install of 22.04?
I have both a smartphone and another ancient Lenovo laptop with 24.04.1 running on it that I can talk to you good folks through. And by the way, in spite of my impatience, I am actually grateful for you guys’ efforts in helping me through it. When we have solved it, maybe someone will find this useful.
But OP said he didn’t install from .run file. I believe him since it is a very deliberate act, he couldn’t have forgotten.
So where does it come from if not .run file and not a deb?
I never use ubuntu-drivers to install drivers, but is it completely equivalent to apt though, or does it require more info re versions and is therefore more limited?
Well, the only bit I see that you should keep is /usr/lib/firmware/nvidia … the rest looks driver related …
(technically also the pycache line (last line) but that will be re-generated next time you fire up the ubuntu-drivers tool)
The line i gave you makes sure all files that come from a debian package are excluded, so what is in that list is definitely not from any package now
If we only knew
but my for loop above actually calls dpkg -S for each file found with the find -name '*nvidia*' call and only prints the ones dpkg does not know about so we are sure it is not from a deb either if it shows in the list
I am now pretty convinced that this is from the Lenovo repo that was activated. in 22.04 but no longer in 24.0.
So an easy way to check that is to install synaptic
sudo apt install synaptic
Open it and there is a row called “manual” I am sure you will find it there. Those are standalone debs you install, packages also go there if you install from a repository that is no longer there.
I remember when I started Ubuntu, old people told me, before you upgrade your OS, always use ppa-purge to purge all third party repos.
it is the same as the “manual installed” section apt can show …
but we have queried dpkg already, that does not make any difference between manual or automatic or left over, it just checks packages directly … synaptic will just clutter the system for no benefit and no further info
