I have now installed the new kernel and its headers package, purged everything nvidia, booted the new kernel and installed all the listed nvidia packages including the 396.54.2 driver and its friends from experimental. Then I went to /usr/lib/nvidia/current and found libglx.so as a link to libglx.so.396.54. So I made a directory /usr/lib/nvidia/current/modules, per towo's post, and I copied the libglx.so.396.54 file there, and made the new link for libglx.so in the same directory.
However, after a reboot, inxi -G gives me the identical output:
Graphics:
Device-1: NVIDIA GP106 [GeForce GTX 1060 6GB] driver: nvidia v: 396.54
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: nvidia
resolution: 1920x1200~60Hz, 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 256 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.0-rc5
so I think towo is still going to see a problem.
Upon first booting the system and logging in to X, xorg is using about 1% of memory, as shown by top. I will watch and see if it grows.
@piper, can you tell me where the libglx.so link is found on your system, please and thank you?