Is there an easy way to roll back to older nvidia drivers

[Daiba]

After installing the latest nvidia drivers from the driver manager I started getting random flickering. It seems to occur randomly every few minutes. I have tried different settings at Nvidia control panel without any improvement. My setup is a GTX 1650 Ti mobile connected to an external monitor supporting 3440x1440 @ 100Hz via usb-c to DP. The issue seems to occur only when going above 60Hz. I can’t replicate the issue on my windows installation using exactly the same configuration (dual boot) so it’s not a hardware issue. I cannot roll back using time shift since this is a new installation.

After going to the nvidia forums I saw similar topics where people had roughly the same problem. Some people speculate it has to do with thunderbolt 3 and some people think it has to do with power states. Since there is no certain date at which this is going to be fixed by nvidia some of them rolled back to 525.85.05 where this problem is not present. Unfortunately there is no option in the driver manager to go to earlier versions.

At the moment my current drivers are 530.41.03-0ubuntu0.22.04.2. The only available option for 525 drivers is 525.105.17-0ubuntu0.22.04.1 which have the same issue as 530. That includes every other driver I have tried.

Therefore I manually downloaded the drivers from nvidia and proceeded to install them. However I came upon a "ERROR: You appear to be running an X server; please exit X before installing" message and through some searching I came upon this post viewtopic.php?p=847465#p847465.

It's a bit too complicated for my liking so my question is, is there any easier way to install older nvidia drivers manually? Ideally shouldn't be there an option in the driver manager to be able to choose older versions much like kernel versions in the update manager?

[roblm]

...is there any easier way to install older nvidia drivers manually? Ideally shouldn't be there an option in the driver manager to be able to choose older versions much like kernel versions in the update manager?

No, and I've always thought it's one of the more significant problems in Linux that needs to be addressed by the developers. You should at least be able to install an older driver in the same driver series.

So you will have to do a manual installation. If you go back to my post in the link you posted, then go down to the
SIMPLIFIED INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

[outofnametochoose]

Therefore I manually downloaded the drivers from nvidia and proceeded to install them. However I came upon a "ERROR: You appear to be running an X server; please exit X before installing" message and through some searching I came upon this post viewtopic.php?p=847465#p847465.

It is not recommended to use Nvidia drivers from the website as it causes a lot of problems, try using the Graphics driver PPA and download the desired Nvidia version via CLI, as they are the second most reliable way to get nvidia drivers.

https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers ... ubuntu/ppa

[roblm]

It is not recommended to use Nvidia drivers from the website as it causes a lot of problems, try using the Graphics driver PPA and download the desired Nvidia version via CLI, as they are the second most reliable way to get nvidia drivers.

https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers ... ubuntu/ppa

In certain situations, installing a driver downloaded from Nvidia's website may be the best or only option, and if done correctly usually works fine for most users of Mint/Ubuntu. I've been testing this since 2013.

It can depend on the driver version you need. I just checked and the Nvidia-515 driver is still available from the repos but it is only the latest version, which is 515.105. On the Nvidia website, versions 515.86, 515.76, and 515.65 are also available, and these were previously available in Driver Manager. Each new version released may introduce a regression in performance in a certain driver feature or fix a regression.

Adding the graphics-drivers PPA will be of no benefit here. It usually is beneficial where Nvidia has recently released a newer driver that is required by the user to support their newer hardware, but it is not yet available in the distro's package management system from the repos. Adding the PPA usually gets the driver sooner. However, it's also possible installing the newest driver can fix a problem, but there is no driver newer than the 530.46 version the OP is already using.

[Hoser Rob]

...is there any easier way to install older nvidia drivers manually? Ideally shouldn't be there an option in the driver manager to be able to choose older versions much like kernel versions in the update manager?

No, and I've always thought it's one of the more significant problems in Linux that needs to be addressed by the developers. ...

Well, that's really Nvidia's fault. But it's still Linux's problem.

[AZgl1800]

don't forget to BLOCK Nvidia in Update Manager

[Daiba]

I would like to thank all of you for your help. I managed to install the 525.85 drivers manually thanks to roblm's guide (which was easier than expected) but I get an error when trying to configure the second screen. I didn't go into the rabbit hole of trying different drivers until I find something that works since it's a problem that occurs above 60hz so it's nothing major. I think I will wait until nvidia releases a fix for the issue. If I learned anything from all of this is to make sure I have a time shift backup before updating anything.