What is the Nouveau Driver?
When you install Ubuntu Linux on a computer with an Nvidia graphics card, the operating system automatically loads the “Nouveau” driver. Nouveau is a completely free, open-source display driver developed by the Linux community through reverse-engineering.
While Nouveau is excellent for getting your system to boot into a graphical interface during installation, it lacks the performance, power management, and advanced features (like CUDA support) of Nvidia’s official proprietary drivers. In fact, if you try to install the official Nvidia drivers while Nouveau is running, the two drivers will conflict and crash your system. You must explicitly disable (blacklist) Nouveau before installing the proprietary software.
How to Blacklist the Nouveau Driver in Ubuntu
To permanently stop the Linux kernel from loading the open-source driver, you must add it to the modprobe blacklist.
- Open your Ubuntu Terminal (shortcut:
Ctrl + Alt + T). - Open the blacklist configuration file in a text editor (like Nano) with root privileges:
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf- The file will likely be empty. Paste the following two lines into the file:
blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0- Save the file by pressing
Ctrl + O, thenEnter, and exit Nano withCtrl + X. - Now, you must update the initial ramdisk (initramfs) so the kernel knows about the blacklist during the very early stages of the boot process:
sudo update-initramfs -u- Reboot your computer.
When your system restarts, the Nouveau driver will be completely disabled. Your display resolution might temporarily look terrible (as the system falls back to a generic VESA driver), but you are now safely ready to install the official, high-performance Nvidia proprietary drivers without any conflicts.