Verifying NVIDIA driver on Ubuntu 19.10

Question

I'm using Ubuntu 19.10 and I want to make sure that my graphics card is putting in its time and not free-riding off my CPU. I downloaded the driver, that I believe should be right, from NVIDIA's website. Currently, I have the 3rd party driver downloaded. I'm thinking that maybe I should switch the drivers out, but I'm not sure how to do that on my version of Ubuntu.

My laptop should have the Quadro P620 in it, but the System → Details → About page says that the graphics are coming from Intel UHD Graphics 630. That doesn't seem like they'd be the same thing to me, but I am very new to Ubuntu.

Here's a screenshot of what I've got going on.

And one more for good measure.

And the one I was asked to include (lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display').

Solution

Disable Secure Boot in UEFI aka BIOS settings and the Nvidia driver will be up and running.

See Why do I get "Required key not available" when install 3rd party kernel modules or after a kernel upgrade? for explanation why isn't it loading now.

Comments

[Pilot6]

Please edit your question and add output of lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display' terminal command.

[financial_physician]

It's the last image I just included! Thank you!

[Pilot6]

Please don't post screenshots of text. Copy and paste text from a terminal.

[singrium]

Check this link to see the appropriate way to install Nvidia Driver and this link to check which graphic card your PC is using

[Pilot6]

Nvidia driver is not used. Disable Secure Boot in BIOS. And please don't install drivers downloaded from Nvidia site. They won't work properly. You have a driver installed but not in use.

[Pilot6]

If you run sudo modprobe nvidia, you'll see the problem. See askubuntu.com/questions/762254/…

[Pilot6]

Why are you suggesting the PPA? It won't solve OPs problem, but can create some more.

[Pilot6]

manual blacklisting of nouveau is not needed and may be harmful. sudo echo xxxx >> file won't work and will add multiple entries if repeated. So all is wrong. So -1.

[avisitoritseems]

The PPA is up to date and well maintained. Blacklisting nouveau is beneficial because it is not needed. If nouveau is loaded first, nvidia will not work. If it is loaded after, it will do nothing. The >> redirection is used on the basis that, for some crazy reason, he does have a file named nvidia-only.conf, it would not be overwritten permanently. If for some reason he executes the command twice, it will do no harm because it will do nothing. Please read man 1 echo.

[Pilot6]

nouveau will be blacklisted automatically. try sudo echo ttt >> /etc/modprobe.d/ttt.conf yourself :-) If he executes the command twice, it will add another line to the file. But in practice it will throw permission denied as you can test yourself.

[Pilot6]

This means you never tried the commands you suggest, that is not very good.

[avisitoritseems]

Thanks for the input, I've revised it. I do not use bash nor dash. This is what I do when reinstalling Ubuntu based distributions for Nvidia systems if I don't choose to recompile the kernel without nouveau.

[Pilot6]

Anyway this answer won't solve the problem, but will complicate things for OP.

[avisitoritseems]

Please explain the complications.

[Pilot6]

The problem is with enabled Secure Boot, not with a driver version.

[Pilot6]

The complication is with adding manual nouveau blacklist, that won't be removed if driver is uninstalled. The installation script contains proper things to handle that. There is no need to install anything from PPA at this point. If the problem is solved, OP can use the PPA if they wish. But anyway there is no need to add manual configs especially with >>.

[Pilot6]

Run your >> command twice and see the result.

[avisitoritseems]

Oh my. I forgot a space. The point still stands that having module configurations appearing twice in /etc/modprobe.d will do no harm.

[Pilot6]

There is NO NEED of this module configurations at all.

[avisitoritseems]

financial_physician wanted his Nvidia graphics card to perform at its best ability. This does that function. Blacklisting nouveau can be easily reversed by removing nvidia.only.conf since his iGPU will take over if he decides to uninstall nvidia-driver.

[Pilot6]

It doesn't perform at any ability now and won't if OP uses your manual ;-)

[Pilot6]

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

[Pilot6]

The dirver is already installed as you can see from the first screenshot.

[avisitoritseems]

I do not have interest in discussing this subject, but thank you for the offer. I will leave my answer up and am fine with it being proven wrong for the use of knowing what one should and shouldn't do if OP replies with what his solution was.

[Adrian S]

You can try a clean install of the drivers. I had the same problem with the system using the default video card and a fresh install using the proprietary drivers was the solution. :)

[financial_physician]

I really appreciate the help! I'm not sure how to go about disabling secure boot. I used to have windows 10 on the computer but I couldn't get ubuntu to work because of the secure boot (couldn't recognize my wireless receiver, etc...) so I decided to use the Lenovo ClearShield screen to wipe my hard drive. Still didn't have any luck so I switched from 18.04 LTS to 19.04 LTS and seemed to make it much further. But this 'secure boot' seems to be following me everywhere. So I don't have Windows 10 on my computer but I'm still not sure how to disable secure boot. (hope I didn't wreck myself.)

[financial_physician]

Just read the link, looks like that might help me solve my problem. I'm not at home right now but I'll let you know if I can't get it to work. Again thank a lot!

[financial_physician]

You're a wizard! I'm up and running now. Thank you so much Pilot6!