Fixing Broken Nvidia Driver Installation Ubuntu 18.04

Question

I have a GTX 1070 on my Ubuntu 18.04 PC. I've previously tried to install nvidia drivers via a runfile using the command sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-418.43.run --no-opengl-files --dkms --no-drm but did not have uninstall it properly so now I can't do --uninstall. I cannot reinstall the runfile either. Trying to do so gives me:

The distribution-provided pre-install script failed!  Are you sure you want to continue?
-Continue Installation
ERROR: The Nouveau kernel driver is currently in use by your system. This driver is incompatible with the NVIDIA driver
-OK
WARNING: One or more modprobe configuration files to disable Nouveau are already present at: /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-installer-disable-nouveau.conf ...
ERROR: Installation has failed. Please see the file '/var/log/nvidia-installer.log' for details.

And in the log file:

nvidia-installer log file '/var/log/nvidia-installer.log'
creation time: Tue Feb 26 08:56:40 2019
installer version: 410.93

PATH: /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/snap/bin

nvidia-installer command line:
    ./nvidia-installer

Unable to load: nvidia-installer ncurses v6 user interface

Using: nvidia-installer ncurses user interface
-> Detected 12 CPUs online; setting concurrency level to 12.
-> Installing NVIDIA driver version 410.93.
-> Running distribution scripts
   executing: '/usr/lib/nvidia/pre-install'...
-> done.

I can't seem to install nvidia's drivers using apt either. Trying to install any versions and running nvidia-smi gives me: NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

And trying to purge nvidia with sudo apt-get purge nvidia* gives me an error:

Purging configuration files for nvidia-compute-utils-390 (390.87-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.2) ...
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.130ubuntu3.6) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.18.0-15-generic
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/sec2/sig.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/sec2/image.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/sec2/desc.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/nvdec/scrubber.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/gr/sw_method_init.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/gr/sw_bundle_init.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/gr/sw_nonctx.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/gr/sw_ctx.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/gr/gpccs_sig.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/gr/gpccs_data.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/gr/gpccs_inst.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/gr/gpccs_bl.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/gr/fecs_sig.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/gr/fecs_data.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/gr/fecs_inst.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/gr/fecs_bl.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/acr/ucode_unload.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/acr/ucode_load.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/acr/unload_bl.bin for module nouveau
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/acr/bl.bin for module nouveau

I would really appreciate it if someone can guide me on fixing this broken installation without reinstalling Ubuntu.

---

Edit: I've managed to "completely" (as far as the log tells me) removed the runfile installation by reinstalling and --uninstall with the runfile. However I'm still getting all the lines "W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/sec2/sig.bin for module nouveau"

Solution

Try doing it this way instead:

This will close your Graphical Display Manager (normally Gnome now days) so if you are following these instructions on the machine you are running them, make a note of the following steps:

sudo telinit 3

This should take you to a tty (a black screen with a login prompt), now login as a superuser (enter the username and password for your account) then run:

sudo su -

This elevates you to root, now cd to the directory that the NVIDIA .run file is in:

cd /home/someuser/Download
bash NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-418.43.run --no-opengl-files --dkms --no-drm

Finally, I found I had to edit my grub default to avoid some errors:

vim /etc/default/grub

Find the line that starts:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=

Add nvidia-drm.modeset=1 (I believe quiet and splash are defaults), mine reads:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nvidia-drm.modeset=1"

Now update your grub:

update-grub

Finally, reboot

Comments

[tatsu]

@matohak I can vouch for this method, although for future driver installations, I recomend against using nvidia's run files. simply add nvidia's ppa : sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa, then sudo apt update then open up "Software & Updates" and go to the drivers tab and install the driver from there. this method is better because you have newer versions and because dist-upgrade won't knock out your nvidia driver.