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Literal day 1 Ubuntu/Linux user here, so I ask in advance that you explain things in the most step-by-step fashion as possible.

When I attempt to boot into Ubuntu 20.04, I get stuck at the splash screen unless I do the "nomodeset" thing in grub. I've installed (what I think are) the latest mesa drivers from oibaf, and have tried uncommenting WaylandEnable. Unfortunately, uncommenting that just leads to a black screen with a lot of "blahblahblah...[OK]" checks, and doesn't proceed from there.

System specs:

Ryzen 7 3800x
AMD RX 580
32GB DDR4 RAM
MSI b450 Gaming Pro Carbon
Running Ubuntu 20.04 off of a 50GB partition on a 2TB SSD

Thank you for your help.

EbbFlowe
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  • The wrong part was this: "I've installed (what I think are) the latest mesa drivers from oibaf". I suggest to re-install the system and don't try to install any drivers. All drivers will be already installed. – Pilot6 Jun 11 '20 at 13:56
  • I'm specifically trying Linux at all to hopefully get the most out of my AMD GPU for emulators. Is it still the case that I should reinstall and not install any other drivers? I need the OpenGL support, no clue if default Ubuntu will cover me there. – EbbFlowe Jun 11 '20 at 14:07
  • Default Ubuntu has everything you need. – Pilot6 Jun 11 '20 at 14:09
  • If you want propritary drivers for any reason, use the "Additional Drivers" tab in Software & Updates gui-app'en. If any drivers are proposed, they should be well integrated with the Ubuntu, kernel and GPU versions. After that you can experiment with downloading drivers from other sources. – Soren A Jun 11 '20 at 14:13
  • There will be no drivers for AMD there @SorenA – Pilot6 Jun 11 '20 at 14:44
  • I've done a fresh install (delete Ubuntu 20.04 and reinstall) and it still hangs up at the splash screen. I rebooted with nomodeset and ran the Software Updater which downloaded some updates, but it still hung up at the splash screen after another reboot. Those are the only two things I've done on this install, any other ideas? – EbbFlowe Jun 11 '20 at 14:52
  • I have since done a completely fresh install (formatted installation media, completely formatted target partition including deleting the old EFI). I still have the same issues and can only boot by doing nomodeset. I tried booting by deleting "quiet splash" as I saw suggested elsewhere, but that only led to a blank purple screen. I have not done anything else except for that I am updating via software updater now.

    I notice that during the install (both this time and other times) that the initial check says that 1 file has errors. I'm not sure what's wrong as I freshly downloaded Ubuntu too.

     – EbbFlowe Jun 11 '20 at 15:32
  • This is a wild shot in the dark, but I had a similar problem with an AMD system. Try adding amdgpu.dc=0 to your default grub file. It solved a similar problem for me. Details here – Nick Sillito Jun 11 '20 at 17:01

1 Answers1

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This seem to happen on systems booting up very fast. E.g. systems with a SSD or inside VirtualBox. (I never had this on systems with a regular hard disk.)

Using the "nomodeset" kernel command line option is only a temporary workaround, because you have low resolution and no multi monitor support.

To fix it, edit the the systemd startup file for your display manger (gdm on Ubuntu 20.04, lightdm on Xubuntu 20.04) and put in 1 second waiting time with the sleep command.

On Ubuntu 20.04, edit /usr/lib/systemd/system/gdm.service and put in the line with the sleep command, so it looks like this:

[Service]
ExecStartPre=/usr/share/gdm/generate-config
ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/sleep 1
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/gdm3

On Xubuntu 20.04, edit /usr/lib/systemd/system/lightdm.service and put in the line with the sleep command, so it looks like this:

[Service]
# temporary safety check until all DMs are converted to correct
# display-manager.service symlink handling
ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c '[ "$(basename $(cat /etc/X11/default-display-manager 2>/dev/null))" = "lightdm" ]'
ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/sleep 1
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/lightdm
Juergen
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