0

I've spent hours to get my new Dell xps 9440 with Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU running. I freshly installed Ubuntu 23.10 with my bootable USB-Stick. After installing and restarting my device is stuck with a blackscreen and a blinking cursor while booting. I cant find any error messages in the journalctl. My devices uses 2 GPU's:

lspci | grep -E "VGA|3D"

0000:00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 7d55 (rev 08)
0000:01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 28a1 (rev a1)

nvidia-smi recognizes my GPU with driver-version: 535.161.07 and Cuda-Version: 12.2

When i switch to the intel grapic with sudo prime-select intel and then reboot. I can boot to the login-screen and use the system. When i switch to nvidia, i am stuck on the booting again with a blackscreen and a cursor. This time the cursors is not even blinking and i have to go to the grub recovery mode to switch the GPU again.

I have spent hours to browse the internet for fixes like:

reinstall the drivers with ubuntu-driver autoinstall, donwloaded a .run file from nvidia and tried to install it this way, used apt, checked for blacklist entries, edited the /etc/default/grub file and set parameters that were recomended. But whatever i tried, i always got stuck while booting when using on demand-mode or the nvidia gpu.

Can someone please help me to get the Device running with Ubuntu?

mikewhatever
  • 32,638
Voldomir
  • 11
  • 1
  • boot into recovery mode where you can get a root console from there issue commands to see then fix – Scott Stensland Mar 22 '24 at 13:58
  • Do not use .run file from nVidia with Ubuntu. Only use the version in the repository. If you have installed more than one version, you must purge first or you get conflicts. Use whatever procedure to uninstall the .run version provides & purge & install correct nVidia driver from recovery mode. This should show what is installed dkms status https://askubuntu.com/questions/1478024/how-do-i-install-an-arbitrary-proprietary-nvidia-gpu-driver-on-ubuntu-studio-22 ubuntu-drivers list --gpgpu Or you can manually choose any in list. sudo apt install linux-modules-nvidia-XXX-$(uname -r) – oldfred Mar 22 '24 at 14:15
  • As i pointed out, thats just some examples what i tried. I also tried a fresh install, logged in to the system with sudo prime-select intel then went to the software&update menu and tried different, there listed drivers. – Voldomir Mar 22 '24 at 14:26

1 Answers1

-1

tl;dr: Install Mainline Kernel >= 6.8 and Nvidia drivers should work as expected.

i currently setup the exact same machine. And actually most stuff is working quite well with just using a current kernel (graphics, wifi, bluetooth, even fingerprint reader and ambient light sensor). However, be prepared that webcam, internal audio are not going to work easily (currently checking to get at least the webcam up and running). Not sure about standby. It's not working for me, but i'm currently running ubuntu from an external SSD via USB and this might be the cause of the issue, so standby might work.

So for your initial problem. While doing the installation just be sure NOT to select the proprietary drivers. If you install the nvidia drivers with the kernel 6.5 ubnutu 23.10 is shipping with you won't get a working GUI. If you don't want to install again, you can go into recovery as others suggested and purge all nvidia stuff. Check for example How can I uninstall a nvidia driver completely ?

sudo apt-get remove --purge '^nvidia-.*'

After running that command you should be able to boot normally. However, it will barely work. Especially wifi, bluetooth etc are not working. So connect your PC with cable (usb tethering on phone or via ethernet) to the internet and install a => 6.8 mainline kernel. this is possible via cli, but the mainline GUI tool is more comfortable. https://github.com/bkw777/mainline?tab=readme-ov-file#install

After installing a current kernel with proper meteor lake support, most stuff should work. as said, some things are not working, so... full support for new hardware sometimes takes some time :-D

hope this helps!

I'm going to add a question here for webcam, maybe the answers there are interesting for you also.

Christoph Stickel
  • 21
  • 2
  • Seems like a long long comment, not an answer. – mikewhatever Mar 22 '24 at 18:36
  • Why isnt it an answer? Not or uninstalling nvidia drivers fixes the mentioned issue, as described in the answer. They can then be reinstalled as soon as a newer Kernel >= 6.8 is installed. – Christoph Stickel Mar 22 '24 at 19:26
  • ok, because someone downvoted it (while it still should perfectly fix his issue, as it did for me), i added a shorter summary at the top. hope this helps. – Christoph Stickel Mar 23 '24 at 10:27
  • @dook unfortunately i can't reply to your message, because i don't have enough "reputation" to create a comment. i guess that was also the reason you used an answer to ask your question, instead of creating a comment. you're just not able too, because you also have a new account.

    however, wifi should work with ubuntu 23.10 and 6.8+ mainline kernel. not sure why it shouldn't work, but you might give the firmware files a chance: https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/iwlwifi those at least helped to get it even work on 6.5 kernels for me. just download the files and copy them.

     – Christoph Stickel Mar 24 '24 at 13:15
  • Thanks alot. My system is now running. I am actually not sure if the gpu is correctly in use because i cannot see load on the gpu but atleast the System is booting correct and every driver is running – Voldomir Mar 28 '24 at 12:29
  • @Voldomir glad that it helped, even if it got downvoted and for some reason not considered as an answer. – Christoph Stickel Mar 29 '24 at 11:32