Nvidia driver not loading instead nouveau is loaded

[omer3]

LS,
I have linux mint 17.3 XFCE and installed the Nvidia driver in many different ways.
First with the GUI in mint "proprietary drivers".
-reboot-
But when doing a lsmod: nouveau is loaded.
Then purged nvidia-375 and did a apt-get install nvidia-current: installed nvidia-340 al seems to be installed correctly.
-reboot-
But nouveau is still loaded.
In "dmesg" there is some complaint about the nvidia module not wanting to load because "nouveau" or other has claimed te GPU (gtx465).
So i modprobe.d / blacklisted the nouveau driver -reboot- still the: nouveau driver is loaded.
There is also a ppa nividia-graphics-drivers and then in the GUI i choose the nvidia-381 installed without errors -reboot- nouveau is still loaded.
There is also a systemd nvidia-persistence error in dmesg that the script cannot be found (is the script in the repo).
There was no systemd installed so i installed systemd and did a reboot.
When doing a apt-get install nvidia-persistence i get that i have to choose between nvidia-3** or 3** dont no what to do with that message.
So i have a working system with nouveau.
But i would like to try the nvidia proprietary driver.

What is the mint way to install the nvidia driver?

Yours Kindly
Omer
The Netherlands

[richyrich]

I didn't read if you performed a reboot after you installed the Nvidia drivers ?

This terminal command will show us a summary of your drives and partitions. Please copy/paste the complete output back here in a reply.

inxi -pldS

[omer3]

True I forget to mention a added -reboot-.

this is the output of System :
System: Host: lisapc Kernel: 3.19.0-32-generic x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: Xfce 4.12.2
Distro: Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA GF100 [GeForce GTX 465] bus-ID: 01:00.0
Display Server: X.org 1.15.1 drivers: nouveau (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
tty size: 112x27 Advanced Data: N/A for root

Mvrgr Omer

[kc1di]

Normally if you install a Nvidia Driver via the additional driver tool - it automatically disables or even removes Nouveau. So not sure what may be going on with yours.
Did you try the additional driver apt ? I'm thinking that what you meant by GUI method.

If not give it a try. you may have to uninstall any nvidia drivers you've already installed.

[omer3]

Thanks for the reply, with the first attempt I used the GUI "driver-manager".
I had some good experience with this and found it a key feature of Mint.
In the old days It used to be that you had to download a nvidia.run file boot to run level 3 and run the nvidia.run script.
But than with a kernel update you had to do it again (boot with the previous kernel etc..).
The thing is that it is for my daughter see wants to run OSB a screen recording tool and stream minecraft.
But her current computer has only a onboard card intel 3000 and OSB is not supporting it.
So I got my sons old gaming computer with steamOS first gen i5 with 8GB and the nvidia gtx465 and put her harddrive into the old gaming computer and try to install the driver.
For now i purchased a new card: a nvidia 1050ti for her current computer a 2gen i5 2500k and leave the old one for steamOS (yep swapping some disks) which by the way installed the nvidia correct.
Maybe nouveau in combination with this new card is enough.
But maybe we need the nvidia driver.

What is the benefit of the Nvidia driver is still so much beter than nouveau?

Yours Kindly
Omer3

[kc1di]

What is the benefit of the Nvidia driver is still so much beter than nouveau?

Yours Kindly
Omer3

The difference in Nvidia and nouveau Drivers is that Nvidia is propriety and built by the Nvidia people. They do not allow anyone to modify or use there code in other words it's not open source and can't be changed by Ubuntu or Mint Devs. While Nouveau is sort of a back ward engineered open source driver, but is not as specific as the manufacturer's drivers. This is especially true of the 3d acceleration features which a lot of games make use of.

In any event it should be possible to get the right driver installed.

[omer3]

LS,
So i tried to install the Nvidia driver with the gui installer.
This gave me some issues like: "nvidia not found" or "nvidia could not claim card" because nouveau got there first.
Although i would like to use the Nouveau driver for the new 1050ti card for my daughter.
There seem to be some performances loss with some games when using nouveau.

For now i installed the "propertary" Nvidia driver the "old" way:-) with these steps:
Download your driver: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx with your favourite browser.
After the download is finished hit CTRL+ALT+F2 (terminal)
Go to the directory where downloaded file is located: $cd /home/.../Download (or different location)
Make the downloaded file executable: $chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-.....run
Killall the desktop manager as root: $sudo killall mdm
Now install the driver as root: $sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-.....run
Read the instructions be nice and patient please, the module/driver will be compiled and installed here that takes some time.
After installation reboot the system: $sudo reboot

This worked for me but it would be nice when there is a GPU hardware vendor selling cards with high specs and open drivers.

Yours kindly
Omer

[criptal]

EDIT: actually the nvidia driver failed, the nouveau driver was automatically loaded

(Hello Omer,
Thank you for your final solution, it gave me a hint, and I could solve my broken driver issue. I had a pretty bizarre problem, with Mint 19.3. At random boots, the nvidia driver got superseeded by the "nouveau" driver. I tried lots of things, to fix it in the standard way, relying on standard package management, dkms and so on. The only thing that saved me is: the bundeled executable from Nvidia's site. And you can even install the driver in dkms mode. What a relief, after so much time loss...)