1. Blocklist nouveau
nouveau is Nvidia free/libre software drivers for nVidia cards.
So when you want to install the proprietary Nvidia drivers, you have to disable nouveau by blocklisting them, regenerating the initramfs (next step) and rebooting without them.
To blocklist nouveau, create /etc/modprobe.d/disable-nouveau.conf file with these contents:
blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0
2. Regenerate initrd (initramfs)
$ sudo update-initramfs -u
3. Reboot and stop graphics (lightdm)
$ sudo systemctl stop lightdm
4. Install Linux headers and dkms
dkms is necessary so that nvidia driver will be automatically rebuild when you install newer Linux kernel
$ sudo apt -y install linux-headers-generic dkms
5. Install 32-bit libraries and dkms
The 32-bit libc library is required so that nvidia installer will be able to build 32-bit nvidia libraries
$ sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
$ sudo apt -y install libc6:i386
I also had
$ sudo apt -y install libxext6:i386 libxdmcp6:i386 libxcb1:i386 libxau6:i386 libx11-6:i386installed. But I presume having onlylibc6:i386should be enough. Please try with onlylibc6:i386and let me know if it worked.
6. Download and install latest Nvidia drivers
You can find and download them at nvidia.com
$ chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-375.39.run
$ sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-375.39.run --dkms
Check whether the NVIDIA’s 32-bit compatibility libraries have been really installed along with 64-bit ones:
$ find /usr/lib* -name "*GLdispatch*" -ls
245043 245 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 822584 Feb 9 18:54 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGLdispatch.so.0
245161 249 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 546840 Feb 9 18:54 /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libGLdispatch.so.0
In case of problems check logs:
$ cat /var/log/nvidia-installer.log
When you updated the kernel, but dkms did not work as expected, you can instruct it to manually rebuild the nvidia driver:
you should have /usr/src/nvidia-375.39/dkms.conf file
# dkms build nvidia/375.39
# dkms install nvidia/375.39
# find /lib/modules/ -name nvidia.ko -ls