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After installing ubuntu 18.10 I get the loading splash screen followed by a black screen and a blinking cursor. I believe it's because the latest nvidia drivers (418.43) that are needed for the 1660ti haven't been added to the repro yet and need to be manually installed.

When I tried Mint 19.1 I could get to the desktop and there was a warning message about the DE running in software mode. However, I was unable to install nvidia-settings because of some missing dependencies and then dpkg problems.

How can I get Ubuntu to boot into the DE so I can download and install the driver manually?

alex87
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1 Answers1

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Either...

  1. Boot into Recovery Mode from the GRUB menu. Get to the root prompt and install the Nvidia driver from there.

  2. At the GRUB menu, hit the e key to enter edit mode. Find "quiet splash" and change it to "quiet splash nomodeset", then control-x to continue booting. The screen resolution will be off.

  3. Then (re)install the correct/latest Nvidia driver for your card.

  4. reboot

heynnema
  • 70,711
  • Sry, it's OK. I thought about adding it to the grub file. – Pilot6 Mar 03 '19 at 15:03
  • @Pilot6 sounds like somebody needs another cup of coffee :-) – heynnema Mar 03 '19 at 15:03
  • Exactly. I am falling asleep. I am going for a coffee. – Pilot6 Mar 03 '19 at 15:04
  • I was having a similar issue with a new P4000 nvidia card. After installing the nvidia (any version) driver, the boot process got stuck in the initial purple screen. Adding "nomodeset" to the boot line in Grub seems to have fixed the problem. Thanks! – MBaz Mar 08 '19 at 17:06
  • @MBaz nomodeset is not a fix, but a way to get things booted enough where you can fix the real problem... which is with the Nvidia driver. – heynnema Mar 08 '19 at 17:08
  • @heynnema Thanks for the heads up, but you left me a bit confused. This is what I did: (1) Install ubuntu 18.10; (2) Install nvidia driver from their ppa site; (3) try to reboot and see it get stuck; (4) reboot, edit Grub boot config to include nomodeset; (5) reboot and see it work. Do you mean that, at this point, I should re-install the driver and then remove the 'nomodeset' boot parameter? Or should I do something else? – MBaz Mar 08 '19 at 17:16
  • @MBaz yes, first make sure you have the correct/current Nvidia driver for your card, install it, remove the nomodeset, and reboot. What video card? What version driver? – heynnema Mar 08 '19 at 17:39
  • It's a P4000 with driver 410 (but 390 behaves the same way). With nomodeset, it boots and works well, I can run benchmarks, etc. Without nomodeset, it doesn't boot (gets stuck in purple screen immediately). What am I missing? – MBaz Mar 08 '19 at 18:21
  • @MBaz if I searched for it correctly, 418.43 is the current Nvidia driver for your card. Add nomodeset back temporarily (use can use "e" at the GRUB screen for this), install 418.43, remove nomodeset, reboot. Report back. If that works, we should really start a new question, and I can write a formal answer that you can accept, ok? – heynnema Mar 08 '19 at 18:26
  • I upgraded to 418.43; it still doesn't boot without nomodeset. This computer also has an integrated Intel display controller. Could Nvidia and Intel be interfering here? I think I'd better ask a new question... Thanks for your help, BTW! – MBaz Mar 08 '19 at 18:46