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I am trying to install Ubuntu 16.04.3 on an Alienware laptop. In order to get the install media to boot I had to use nouveau.modeset=0. Also the installer would hang unless I unchecked the two boxes about installing updates and downloading third party drivers. I figured I would just update and install the drivers once I got the system booting.

Here's the problem. After installation I booted and I couldn't get past the login screen; figured it was because I didn't have the Nvidia drivers. So I booted to recovery mode and ran apt update && apt upgrade. But the upgrade command got stuck when it was trying to configure cups. Here are the last two lines before the hang:

invoke-rc.d: could not determine runlevel
[ OK ] Started Braille Device Support

So for some reason invoke-rc.d doesn't recognize my runlevel, I suspect it has to do with recovery mode. I'm pretty my problem is related to this bug. Also this question looks similar, but it hasn't been resolved.

Well now I'm stuck in a vicious circle. If I try to install anything I get an error and a suggestion to run

sudo dpkg --configure -a

Running that command gets stuck again because of the runlevel bug. And around and around.

How can I reconfigure dpkg and install my video driver without get stuck in this cycle?

noel
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1 Answers1

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At the login screen I was able to get to a tty ctrl+alt+F3. At the tty I ran

dpkg --configure -a

This time it succeeded because I wasn't in recovery-mode.

Finally I was able to install my video card driver

sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall

After rebooting I can log in fine. Seems like a bug to me though.

noel
  • 314