How to fix Nvidia graphics card problems

Unfortunately the FOSS project nouveau is long from being able to replace the infamous proprietary nvidia drivers. Chances are you are going to install them to have basic stuff working, such as simply connecting an external monitor to your laptop.

See the article on non-free firmware to understand how to install them.

The drivers aren't going to completely save your time, tough.

In fact, even if they blacklist nouveau, to configure a dual-monitor setup with your desktop environment you may need anyway to:

  1. force the appropriate kernel modules to be loaded at boot-time in the kernel boot parameters 
nvidia-drm.modeset=1
  1. and, after rebooting, do some magic trick with xrandr:
xrandr --setprovideroutputsource NVIDIA-G0 modesetting && xrandr --auto

as explained in the nvidia documentation.

If in trouble, consult or ask for help in their online forum and study Xorg and the related tooling.