Need help removing nvidia driver

Actually it's not that simple, but is pretty easy. Question is, how did you install the drivers to start out with. If you installed them from the nVidia site, reverting back to nouveau is a bit harder than if you installed them from the rpmfusion repo. So, ... how did you install the drivers.

Hi, well, if you do in a terminal:

su -c "yum remove kmod-nvidia"

that's a start. Installing that driver also blacklisted nouveau so you have to:

su -c "rm /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf"

then,

su -c "rm /etc/X11/xorg*"

to remove the xorg.conf file and other remnants of the nvidia setup.

Then all you have to do as reboot and you should be back into nouveau.

You can copy and paste those lines into your terminal, but if you decide to just type them out, just make sure that X11 is a capital "X", everybody makes that mistake.

BTW - if you decide to reinstall nVidia drivers, ask and we'll tell you the steps you need to do it successfully. It takes more than just installing kmod-nvidia, because Fedora ties it's kernel so close to the nouveau drivers.

Any questions, just post back, especially if your uncertain about anything. Also, you should type and execute all commands before rebooting, or else you'll get a black screen.

Thanks mfillpot, it really does belong in Fedora.

@win2tank Fedora, as I said before, sets the timer on grub to zero, so, it's hard to catch. Experiment by hitting escape occasionally while it is booting up and see if you can catch grub. If you hit it at the right spot, we can work on it from there. Since we are going back and forth on the forum, I'll try and tell you some things in advance, in case we don't catch each other here at the same time.

If escape works and you can catch grub, press "e" when it appears and add a "3" (without quotes) to the kernel line so we can boot up into init 3, which will leave you at a terminal screen with a prompt.
If you can't catch grub with escape, you will need a LiveCD of Fedora, or, actually almost any other Linux distro. Let me know what you have and we'll go from there.

I'm first trying to get a copy of your grub.conf so I can see what kernels are installed and at the same time I'll help you fix grub so it shows up during boot.

If escape does work and you get to a prompt type in:

su -c "cat /boot/grub/grub.conf"

I need the output from that command to get us started.

I'll leave it at that for now, let me know how you make out.

Good news, you didn't install the wrong type of kernel, you just installed a newer kernel. Nothing to do here, but, lets make sure you can see grub the next time you boot up.

su -c "nano /boot/grub/grub.conf" will open up that file for you.

Change timeout=0 to timeout=3 , and
put a hash mark in from of hiddenmenu (make it #hiddenmenu)

Then hitting ctrl-x and then "y" will save the file for you.

You should be back to a prompt at this point, so lets see what you have.

Let me see the output of
dir /etc/modprobe.d/
and
dir /etc/X11/

ok, you still have an xorg.conf that didn't get removed.

su -c "yum remove /etc/X11/xorg*"

Don't forget the asterisk after xorg, it helps remove the xorg.conf and it's backup file.

You can try rebooting after that. Keep your fingers crossed.

Sorry, I had a brain fart. The command should have been

su -c "rm /etc/X11/xorg*"

I guess I had yum on the brain to much the last couple of days.

Well, sometimes they do that, but with info pertaining to nouveau. You did remove the kmod-nvidia drivers right? What was the outcome of letting it boot all the way? Did you get a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner of the monitor?
Lets see what xorg.conf has in it.

su -c "cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf"

No problem, Removing the kmod-nvidia might not have removed xorg-x11-drv-nvidia, so, if we just repeat everything once more it hopefully will work this time.

Repeat these commands again and then reboot. Make sure the asterisks are in the commands.

su -c "yum remove kmod-nvidia*"
su -c "yum remove xorg-x11-drv-nvidia*"
su -c "rm /etc/X11/xorg*"
su -c "rm /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf"

If xorg rebuilds itself during boot, it's okay, but it might insert "vesa" in where "nouveau" should go, but that's easy to fix. I've done this operation a few times so it should work.

If you get a "no file found" while doing the commands, it's ok, it means they're gone.

YES.....I'm doing the Snoopy dance.....YES!!!!!

OK, enjoy, have fun. Any other questions feel free to ask.

:-)