Kubuntu 16.04 Driver Manager broken

I found a workaround on the BinaryDriverHowto page, under the Installation without X header.

You can run sudo ubuntu-drivers devices to see the detected drivers, and use apt to install them yourself. Here's the example as listed on that page:

sudo ubuntu-drivers devices

== /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0 ==

vendor   : NVIDIA Corporation
modalias : pci:v000010DEd00000DDAsv000017AAsd000021D1bc03sc00i00
model    : GF106GLM [Quadro 2000M]
driver   : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin
driver   : nvidia-304-updates - distro non-free
driver   : nvidia-304 - distro non-free
driver   : nvidia-331 - distro non-free recommended
driver   : nvidia-331-updates - distro non-free

sudo apt-get install nvidia-331

To answer your initial question ("Is any one else experiencing this"), the answer is Yes - me.

Still searching for a fix myself (your second question), I will edit my answer if I ever find one.

EDIT: I finally found a bug report about this issue.

EDIT: A comment within provides with a quick fix/workaround:

sudo update-apt-xapian-index

You may also need to install apt-xapian-index package since that apt-xapian-index vanished from the image went unnoticed for 16.04. Reportedly, the package has been added back for yakkety.

Unfortunately, despite of its age (4 months) and the fact that a clue was found, nobody is assigned to its resolution. The bug has been fixed.

Muon package manager (sudo apt-get install muon) has the drivers listed and available for installation. Once you get the driver version (sudo ubuntu-drivers devices), you can search for it and notice the binary driver with this version number.