[RESOLVED] Switching from Ubuntu/Kubuntu provided (Non-PPA) nVidia drivers to PPA nVidia drivers and back or older PPA Drivers?

[smf9002]

On 24.04 - I updated to the 550 drivers by installing the packages already available using this method:

https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/nvidi...s-installation


Install Kernel Headers
sudo apt install linux-modules-nvidia-550-generic

Validate Kernel Modules
sudo apt-cache policy linux-modules-nvidia-550-$(uname -r)

Install the user space drivers and driver libraries
sudo apt install nvidia-driver-550

reboot


This worked well but it looks like the updated PPA version has a fix I'd like to try

If I want to move to PPA drivers now - with the possibility of moving back to Ubuntu/Kubuntu (Non-PPA) drivers what is the recommended method to do that?

If I try to use sudo kubuntu-driver-manager - it shows using a manually installed driver and everything is greyed out (so I can't switch it there).

Can I switch to the PPA version directly or do I have to remove my current drivers first or move to nouveau drivers first?

If you've done this before let me know what has worked well for you previously.

Thanks for any information you can provide.

[oshunluvr]

Generally, if the same package is on more than one PPA on your system but in different versions, the latest version is the primary install candidate. So if you add a PPA that has newer drivers, they should just be immediately installable.

If you want to install an older version - you would need to specify it specifically or remove the other PPA from your system. If you have 2 PPA active and use the ppa-purge tool, the older version should be installed when the PPA with the newer version is purged.

HOWEVER, with something as touchy as nvidia drivers, I'd be very cautious. You better be prepared to restore from a backup.

If you used BTRFS you would only need to take a snapshot before attempting any of this.

[smf9002]

Before testing this I did ensure I had a good btrfs snapshot as per oshunluvr's suggestion (Thanks!)

I was able to revert to the recommended version of the nvidia driver (135.171.04) and fix the issue with kubuntu-driver-manager being greyed out with "manually installed driver" by using the following commands:

sudo ubuntu-drivers install

sudo reboot

Now I can change the driver version in kubuntu-driver-manager again (or install the PPA and choose one of those)

The 550 drivers are still installed but not being used - I can likely remove them using:

sudo apt autoremove

Thanks!