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I'm having trouble installing and booting Ubuntu on a high end laptop with a GPU. I do the installation from a bootable USB drive. To get that to work I have to go into the boot menu and set the nomodeset option as described here (Errors from nouveau when installing or booting from live usb).

The problem is that the newly installed image hangs just after login. No doubt its hanging because of issues with the GPU driver just like installer was hanging until I set the nomodeset option. The problem is that I can't figure out a way to boot into a safe mode state so I can either set a nomodeset option or update the drivers.

Mike
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1 Answers1

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You can set the option right in the GRUB boot menu. After turning on your computer, hold Shift to display the GRUB screen, press E to enter the edit menu. Here, scroll down to the line having linux and add the nomodeset parameter right to the end of that line.

If you're able to successfully log in, then open a Root Terminal, and open /etc/default/grub with your favourite editor. Add nomodeset inside the quotes to the line starting with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT (create that line if it doesn't exist), and then run sudo update-grub.

Let me know if I'm missing any details here.

Mukesh Sai Kumar
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  • Can you add the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT to create if it didn't exist? – damadam Dec 20 '19 at 11:29
  • Yes. Of course. Just add GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset". – Mukesh Sai Kumar Dec 20 '19 at 13:07
  • That sounds right, but I can't get to the GRUB screen. Shift doesn't get me there, ctrl-alt-F1 doesn't get me there. It always just continues to an ubuntu login screen (which hangs as soon as you try to type in the password box) – Mike Dec 20 '19 at 15:05
  • As you have accepted my answer, I assume you solved the issue you just commented. – Mukesh Sai Kumar Dec 21 '19 at 05:41