Installing a proprietary graphics driver installs a lot of packages and dependencies. In the event you want to uninstall the proprietary driver, sometimes it is not as straight forward as it should be because there is no documentation.
What follows are the steps I took to uninstall AMD’s proprietary Catalyst driver from Fedora 18.
Identify the Packages to Uninstall
Version 13.4-2 of the akmod-catalyst package installs the following dependencies:
akmod-catalyst-13.4-2.fc18.x86_64 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
akmods-0.5.1-3.fc18.noarch @rpmfusion-free
fakeroot-1.12.4-5.fc18.x86_64 @fedora
fakeroot-libs-1.12.4-5.fc18.x86_64 @fedora
kmodtool-1-22.fc18.noarch @rpmfusion-free-updates
libmng-1.0.10-8.fc18.x86_64 @fedora
patch-2.6.1-14.fc18.x86_64 @fedora
qt-1:4.8.4-17.fc18.x86_64 @updates
qt-settings-4.9-21.fc18.noarch @updates
qt-x11-1:4.8.4-17.fc18.x86_64 @updates
rpm-build-4.10.3.1-1.fc18.x86_64 @updates
rpmdevtools-8.3-1.fc18.noarch @fedora
xemacs-filesystem-21.5.33-4.fc18.noarch @updates
xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-13.4-1.fc18.x86_64 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-libs-13.4-1.fc18.x86_64 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
Of the packages listed above, the following are the relevant packages to remove if you want to uninstall the AMD Catalyst Proprietary Driver:
akmod-catalyst-13.4-2.fc18.x86_64 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
akmods-0.5.1-3.fc18.noarch @rpmfusion-free
kmodtool-1-22.fc18.noarch @rpmfusion-free-updates
xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-13.4-1.fc18.x86_64 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-libs-13.4-1.fc18.x86_64 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
Uninstall AMD Catalyst Proprietary Driver
Uninstall Repository Packages
Run the following command to uninstall the packages mentioned above. If you do not want to uninstall packages manually, yum history is a very useful command to rollback package installs.
yum erase akmod-catalyst akmods kmodtool xorg-x11-drv-catalyst xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-libs
Create New initramfs
The following command will create a new /boot/initramfs-%{version}-%{release}.%{arch}.img and modify /boot/grub2/grub.cfg by removing the nomodeset kernel parameter from the most recently installed kernel’s boot line.
new-kernel-pkg --remove-args=nomodeset --mkinitrd --dracut --update $(rpm -q --queryformat="%{version}-%{release}.%{arch}\n" kernel | tail -n 1)
Remove /etc/X11/xorg.conf
This will remove the xorg.conf file created by the aticonfig --initial -f command during installation. The aticonfig command will have created a backup xorg.conf file in /etc/X11 with a file name such as xorg.conf.original-0. If you know this to be a working xorg.conf file you can revert back to it. However, there is a possibility that file is empty if you have been using onboard video.
rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Remove the rpmfusion-nonfree Repository
This is optional, but you might want to remove the rpmfusion-nonfree repository if you no longer need it.
First, identify if there are any other packages installed from that repository:
yum list installed | grep rpmfusion-nonfree
If there are any packages returned, uninstall them with yum erase.
Then, remove the rpmfusion-nonfree repository:
rpm --erase rpmfusion-nonfree-release-18.noarch
Shutdown the System
init 0
Remove the Graphics Card and Boot the System
Physically remove the graphics card and connect your display adapter to the onboard video.
The system should now boot properly using onboard video.
