How To Install driverctl on Ubuntu 21.04

One-liner install command

For those in a hurry, here's a one-line installation command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt -y install driverctl

But if you are interested in the detailed steps with descriptions, the following information is for you.

What is driverctl and what are the ways to install it?

Before beginning this tutorial, you will need access to a server or computer running Ubuntu 21.04. This guide was written specifically with a server running Ubuntu 21.04 in mind, although it should also work on older, supported versions of the operating system.

Also, make sure you are running a regular, non-root user with sudo privileges configured on your server. When you have an account available, log in as your non-root user to begin.

There are several ways to install driverctl on Ubuntu 21.04. You can use (links are clickable):

In the following sections, we will describe each method in detail. You can choose one of them or refer to the recommended one.

Install driverctl using apt-get

First, update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt-get database, You can install driverctl using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install driverctl

Install driverctl using apt

Because driverctl is available in Ubuntu 21.04’s default repositories, it is possible to install it from these repositories using the apt packaging system.

To begin, update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, You can install driverctl using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install driverctl

Install driverctl using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu 21.04. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating aptitude database, You can install driverctl by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install driverctl

How to upgrade (update) a single package driverctl using apt-get?

First, you will need to update packages index. Run update command as usual:

sudo apt-get update

Next, to upgrade only the driverctl, e.g. single package, you should use the following format with the apt-get command/apt command:

sudo apt-get --only-upgrade install driverctl

Note that this command will not install any new packages! If you wish to install the package if it doesn't exist you may leave out --only-upgrade part.

sudo apt-get install driverctl

How To Uninstall driverctl from Ubuntu 21.04

To uninstall only the driverctl package you can execute the following command:

sudo apt-get remove driverctl

Uninstall driverctl and all its dependencies

To uninstall driverctl and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 21.04, you can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove driverctl

Remove driverctl with all configurations and data

To remove driverctl configuration and data from your system you can run the following purge command:

sudo apt-get -y purge driverctl

Remove driverctl completely (configurations, data and all of its dependencies)

And lastly, you can run the next command to remove absolutely everything related to driverctl package, e.g.: configurations, data and all of its dependencies. Just use this command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge driverctl

Extra info and code examples

Driverctl is a tool for manipulating and inspecting the system device driver choices. Devices are normally assigned to their sole designated kernel driver by default. However in some situations it may be desirable to override that default, for example to try an older driver to work around a regression in a driver or to try an experimental alternative driver. Another common use-case is pass-through drivers and driver stubs to allow userspace to drive the device, such as in case of virtualization. driverctl integrates with udev to support overriding driver selection for both cold- and hotplugged devices from the moment of discovery, but can also change already assigned drivers, assuming they are not in use by the system. The driver overrides created by driverctl are persistent across system reboots by default.

Conclusion

You now have a full guide on how to install driverctl using apt, apt-get and aptitude tools. Also, we showed how to update as a single package and different ways to uninstall the driverctl from Ubuntu 21.04.

See also: