I got a black screen every time Ubuntu boots, and I can't get to the GRUB menu

Question

When I was trying to install Ubuntu I got a black screen too, but back then, I press e to edit GRUB, and modified quiet splash --- to quiet splash nomodeset and successfully installed Ubuntu.

But everytime I boot Ubuntu, the only picture I can see is the login page, after that the only thing left in screen is black. I know Ubuntu booted successfully because when I pressed Alt+Ctrl+T and typed reboot, it worked, even I only got a black screen. So I guess nvidia is responsible for this.

I tried holding Shift while booting Ubuntu, but I couldn't enter GRUB menu, I pressed Esc and only got GRUB command line, so how can I solve this?

Answer 1

This black/blank screen is caused by nouveau kernel drivers.

Nouveau is the open-source graphics driver for NVIDIA graphics cards.

They should be disabled at grub during boot or tty before you login.

SOLUTION A

You need to update your grub with nouveau.modeset=0 at the line starting with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="

You can do this by clicking e at boot time to edit grub or before you login by switching to tty.
To switch to tty click on ctrl + alt + f3/f4

1. In tty login and type

   nano /etc/default/grub
   

   to edit grub. Type nouveau.modeset=0 after quiet splash to disable loading of nouveau kernel drivers.

2. Then type

   sudo bash -c "echo blacklist nouveau > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia-nouveau.conf"
   sudo bash -c "echo options nouveau modeset=0 >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia-nouveau.conf"
   

3. Confirm the content of the new modprobe config file:

   cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia-nouveau.conf
   

   It should have an output similar to the one below:

   blacklist nouveau 
   options nouveau modeset=0
   

4. Update kernel initramfs

   Enter the following linux command to regenerate initramfs:

   sudo update-initramfs -u
   

5. Update Grub

   Enter the following command to update grub

   sudo update-grub
   

6. Reboot your computer.

   sudo reboot
   

SOLUTION B

To disable the Nouveau kernel driver:

1. Remove the installed NVIDIA drivers:

   sudo apt-get purge "nvidia*"
   sudo apt autoremove
   

2. Create a new file named /etc/modprobe.d/disable-nouveau.conf with the following lines:

   blacklist nouveau
   blacklist lbm-nouveau
   options nouveau modeset=0
   alias nouveau off
   alias lbm-nouveau off
   

3. Append this line to /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau-kms.conf:

   options nouveau modeset=0
   

4. Update the boot environment for your kernel:

   sudo update-initramfs -u
   

5. Reboot your computer and you should get a low resolution GUI which indicates that nouveau graphics driver is not being used.

SOLUTION C

1. Cleanup all nvidia package ( remove all nvidia related packages).

   sudo apt-get remove nvidia* && sudo apt autoremove
   

   If you get the following error it means that you never had an nvidia package installed and is ok:

   no matches found: nvidia*
   

2. Now install some required dependencies:

   sudo apt-get install dkms build-essential linux-headers-generic
   

3. Black list nouveau driver (block and disable nouveau kernel driver)

   sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
   

4. Append the follow lines to the blacklist.conf:

   blacklist nouveau 
   blacklist lbm-nouveau
   options nouveau modeset=0
   alias nouveau off
   alias lbm-nouveau off
   

5. Disable the Kernel nouveau by typing the following commands:

   echo options nouveau modeset=0 | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau-kms.conf 
   

6. Update the boot environment for your kernel:

   sudo update-initramfs -u
   

7. Finally update and reboot:

   reboot
   

I hope this helps.

References

1. How to disable nouveau driver link 1
2. How to disable nouveau driver link 2
3. How to remove nouveau kernel driver
4. How to remove nouveau-kernel-driver-Nvidia-install