Xubuntu: Disable nvidia (in favor of ATI/AMD)

[^rooker]

I've replaced an Nvidia card with an AMD one on a Xubuntu 18.04 desktop machine.
Now I'm always seeing a few percent of CPU usage and a constant system load of around 3.00. That's odd.
Since I'd like to have the Nvidia card (and its fine-tuned, properly working settings) as a fallback, I don't want to uninstall all nvidia-things...

I'm taking notes here, because I can't seem to disable some Nvidia leftovers that autostart on boot.

Here's something funny:

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/sbin/modprobe nvidia-modeset
/sbin/modprobe nvidia-uvm
/usr/bin/nvidia-smi

The first of these processes is running, but when I kill it it says "kill: (13855): No such process" - and then spawns the second one.
When I kill that one, it says "no such process" - and spawns the third one.
When I kill that one, it says "no such process" - and spawns the 2nd one again...

I also found this:

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$ sudo systemctl status nvidia-persistenced.service

shows:

* nvidia-persistenced.service - NVIDIA Persistence Daemon
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nvidia-persistenced.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: inactive (dead)

Okt 22 22:32:19 ryzer8 systemd[1]: Started NVIDIA Persistence Daemon.
Okt 22 22:32:19 ryzer8 nvidia-persistenced[9331]: Started (9331)
Okt 22 22:32:19 ryzer8 systemd[1]: nvidia-persistenced.service: Unit not needed anymore. Stopping.
Okt 22 22:32:19 ryzer8 nvidia-persistenced[9331]: Received signal 15
Okt 22 22:32:19 ryzer8 systemd[1]: Stopping NVIDIA Persistence Daemon...
Okt 22 22:32:19 ryzer8 nvidia-persistenced[9331]: PID file unlocked.
Okt 22 22:32:19 ryzer8 nvidia-persistenced[9331]: PID file closed.
Okt 22 22:32:19 ryzer8 nvidia-persistenced[9331]: The daemon no longer has permission to remove its runtime data directory /var/run/nvidia-persistenced
Okt 22 22:32:19 ryzer8 nvidia-persistenced[9331]: Shutdown (9331)
Okt 22 22:32:19 ryzer8 systemd[1]: Stopped NVIDIA Persistence Daemon.

...but the number after "Shutdown ()" constantly changes when I refresh the status.
It sure is *persistent*


Also dmesg is flodded with this message:

[ 60.599593] NVRM: No NVIDIA graphics adapter found!
[ 60.720491] nvidia-nvlink: Unregistered the Nvlink Core, major device number 237
[ 60.882606] nvidia-nvlink: Nvlink Core is being initialized, major device number 237

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$ dpkg -l | grep -i nvidia

ii libnvidia-cfg1-390:amd64 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX configuration library
ii libnvidia-common-390 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 all Shared files used by the NVIDIA libraries
ii libnvidia-compute-390:amd64 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 NVIDIA libcompute package
ii libnvidia-compute-390:i386 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 i386 NVIDIA libcompute package
ii libnvidia-decode-390:amd64 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 NVIDIA Video Decoding runtime libraries
ii libnvidia-decode-390:i386 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 i386 NVIDIA Video Decoding runtime libraries
ii libnvidia-encode-390:amd64 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 NVENC Video Encoding runtime library
ii libnvidia-encode-390:i386 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 i386 NVENC Video Encoding runtime library
ii libnvidia-fbc1-390:amd64 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 NVIDIA OpenGL-based Framebuffer Capture runtime library
ii libnvidia-fbc1-390:i386 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 i386 NVIDIA OpenGL-based Framebuffer Capture runtime library
ii libnvidia-gl-390:amd64 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 NVIDIA OpenGL/GLX/EGL/GLES GLVND libraries and Vulkan ICD
ii libnvidia-gl-390:i386 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 i386 NVIDIA OpenGL/GLX/EGL/GLES GLVND libraries and Vulkan ICD
ii libnvidia-ifr1-390:amd64 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 NVIDIA OpenGL-based Inband Frame Readback runtime library
ii libnvidia-ifr1-390:i386 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 i386 NVIDIA OpenGL-based Inband Frame Readback runtime library
ii nvidia-compute-utils-390 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 NVIDIA compute utilities
ii nvidia-dkms-390 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 NVIDIA DKMS package
ii nvidia-driver-390 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 NVIDIA driver metapackage
ii nvidia-kernel-common-390 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 Shared files used with the kernel module
ii nvidia-kernel-source-390 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 NVIDIA kernel source package
ii nvidia-prime 0.8.8.2 all Tools to enable NVIDIA's Prime
ii nvidia-settings 440.44-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 Tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
ii nvidia-utils-390 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 NVIDIA driver support binaries
ii xserver-xorg-video-nvidia-390 390.132-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver

https://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-li ... on-ubuntu/


[SOLUTION]
I wasn't able to just "disable" the nvidia drivers/tools - I had to uninstall them:

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sudo apt remove '^nvidia-.*'

Now system load is back to normal and glxgears also works again.