How to unload kernel module 'nvidia-drm'?

I imagine you want to stop the display manager which is what I'd suspect would be using the Nvidia drivers.

After change to a text console (pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2) and logging in as root, use the following command to disable the graphical target, which is what keeps the display manager running:

# systemctl isolate multi-user.target

At this point, I'd expect you'd be able to unload the Nvidia drivers using modprobe -r (or rmmod directly):

# modprobe -r nvidia-drm

Once you've managed to replace/upgrade it and you're ready to start the graphical environment again, you can use this command:

# systemctl start graphical.target

lsof lists any files that are in use by userspace processes. But nvidia_drm is a kernel module, so lsof won't necessarily see whether or not it is actually in use. (The module file won't be open because the kernel has already completely loaded it into RAM. But the module might be providing services to the userspace or other kernel components, and that is what prevents the unloading of the module.)

Run lsmod | grep nvidia.drm and see the numbers to the right of the nvidia_drm module name. The first number is simply the size of the module; the second is the use count. In order to successfully remove the module, the use count must be 0 first.

If the X11 server is running and using the nvidia driver, then the nvidia_drm kernel module will most assuredly be in use. So you'll need, at the very least, switch into text console and shutdown the X11 server. Usually this can be done by stopping whichever X Display Manager service you're using (depends on which desktop environment you're using).

As the error message said, if you are running nvidia-persistenced, you'll need to stop that too before you can unload the nvidia_drm module.

I had a similar problem.

*Reason: nvidia.drm package was in use

I fixed it by purging all NVIDIA packages.

Remove all previous NVIDIA installations with these 2 commands:

$ sudo apt-get purge nvidia*
$ sudo apt-get autoremove

Module should be removed.

Reboot and go forth.