What is it with updates?

[Scorpa54]

xorg was the only hiccough, all else went smoothly. Some slight strangeness with task manager's update readout compared to discovery's readout, but that straightened out as updates were applied.

[woodsmoke]

hiccough...

LOVE it!

woody

[claydoh]

My input here, from some experience with Nvidia cards, up to a GTX 1050 ( that I very recently replaced with an RX 560), is to either update a fresh install before installing the stockNvidia-390 driver, and only upgrade to the still beta 396 once everything is working fine. It usually is a smooth upgrade from 390 to 396, if things are working well with the stable driver, and any tweaks will carry over.

Another thing that I sometimes see is some leftovers from the 390 driver after installing the 396, or downgrading to the 390, that can be problematic.
Running sudo apt autoremove usually clears up these files that can keep xorg from starting or running.

[This is because different groups of people are packaging things in slightly different ways between the PPA and the stock repo, I think]

Another thing that can happen is a super low screen resolution, which can mean that the kernel modules did not get built or rebuilt for some reason.
running sudo apt install nvidia-dkms-390 --reinstall ###or -396, as appropriate
This will rebuild modules for the kernels(s) you have, and show any errors if they don't build. I have not seen build failures happen in ages, just once in a while they don't seem to get built, the scripts are not run, or something. I have not investigated as re-running the dkms scripts by reinstalling the package has worked in those cases without fail. (when switching drivers, not when installing fresh, this seems to be an artifact of using the PPA, mainly with downgrading )

I usually use the driver manager to swap drivers, and only do the command line fu if there is a problem present.

I also have never had to edit a grub setting for nomodeset, not in ages, and in older cards. I have done little to no tweaking, as I have not had any tearing issues or the like. I have tried turning on Force Full Composition Pipeline in Nvidia Settings, with some usefulness, though this is debatable on it being overkill. You can set some options in the settings app, but be sure to save them, they will be added to an xorg.conf so they work between reboots.

This Reddit thread has some recent experiences specific to Plasma users
https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comment...ietary_nvidia/

But note that everyone has a different experience, even with similar or the same GPUS, so YMMV. Anything you want to try, make sure there is a reason why this is supposed to help, that is is very recent , and don't tweak until you have things running as well as it can beforehand. Some gui tweak settings may not be present in the 390 driver.