Background Two days ago I started up computer & it was stuck with 1 screen at 1024x768.

I had to reinstall Ubuntu from scratch and I posted that here.

Today, I started the computer again and it was back at 1024x768 with only one screen available again.

I got it fixed (as I wrote up on the answer at the link above. I had to choose an older NVidia driver for my 1660.

New Updates Now I see there are new updates -- this is what started the entire problem.

I'm wondering if installing these updates are going to corrupt my system so that I cannot run my NVidia with 2 screens and a good (high) resolution?

I'm just not sure if I should ignore updates somehow or if I'll always be able to choose the older 470 driver??

You need the updates.

I suggest your system was never corrupted and a re install was not required.

What most likely happened was a new kernel got installed in the update. Simply going back to the old kernel would have fixed it. I suggest accept the update and if you have an issue come back and let someone help you. You can not have a stable and secure system if you do not do the updates.

If it was not a new kernel that caused the issue you may simply have had the wrong driver for the GPU.

When doing the install use the additional drivers and install the one that is suggested for your card.

The recommended suggestions did not work for me.

OP mentioned that they reinstalled the system. This is fine for most things, but we are on LTS for a reason and a reinstall was not an option for me.

It seemed like the reinstall fixed the issue rather than the accepted answer.

System details

OS: 22.04.1

Kernel: 5.15.0-46-generic

GPU: Nvidia 3080

Symptoms

Like OP I also ran a standard install and fell back to 1024 resolution.

I did not change drivers

I was not given a kernel update

I also tried to change to older drivers 510 and then back to my recommended driver 515 but without any success.

I did not reinstall the os.

The problem

Starts with ubuntu-drivers

The UI for 'Additional drivers' runs this command ubuntu-drivers autoinstall

This returns an error [to be reported].

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/ubuntu-drivers", line 513, in <module>
    greet()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/click/core.py", line 1128, in __call__
    return self.main(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/click/core.py", line 1053, in main
    rv = self.invoke(ctx)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/click/core.py", line 1659, in invoke
    return _process_result(sub_ctx.command.invoke(sub_ctx))
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/click/core.py", line 1395, in invoke
    return ctx.invoke(self.callback, **ctx.params)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/click/core.py", line 754, in invoke
    return __callback(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/click/decorators.py", line 84, in new_func
    return ctx.invoke(f, obj, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/click/core.py", line 754, in invoke
    return __callback(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/bin/ubuntu-drivers", line 432, in autoinstall
    command_install(config)
  File "/usr/bin/ubuntu-drivers", line 187, in command_install
    UbuntuDrivers.detect.nvidia_desktop_pre_installation_hook(to_install)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/UbuntuDrivers/detect.py", line 839, in nvidia_desktop_pre_installation_hook
    with_nvidia_kms = version >= 470
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'version' referenced before assignment

The solution

What worked for me was a purging of the nvidia packages and a manual purge of the drivers and a manual driver install.

sudo apt-get remove --purge '^nvidia-.*'
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get --purge remove "*cublas*" "cuda*"
sudo apt-get --purge remove "*nvidia*"
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
sudo apt autoremove
sudo reboot

Then installed my recommended nvidia drivers after checking the official recommenedations here https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx

For my card the recommended driver is 515 so

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-515

Those instructions came from this other helpful post NVIDIA RTX 3080 GPU not working with Ubuntu 20.04, Kernel 5.8.0-50-generic

I went ahead and installed the latest updates and since I had previously chosen the driver (shown below) for my NVidia 1660 everything worked out fine. No corruption.