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Just upgraded to 17.10. I have been using onboard graphics for a while but need to switch to nvidia now to use two external monitors at work. Running nvidia-settings from the command line gives the following error:

ERROR: Unable to find display on any available system

Googling returned a bunch of results from an Arch Linux forum, but nothing Ubuntu-specific for that error message. So here I am! Could anyone suggest steps to debug?

Will
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  • Did you try with an X11 session? Proprietary Nvidia drivers are not supported by Wayland. – Takkat Nov 07 '17 at 09:25
  • @Takkat sorry my level of knowledge is quite low. Don't suppose you could point to any instructions on how to "try with an X11 session"? – Will Nov 07 '17 at 09:33
  • Here it is explained: https://askubuntu.com/questions/961304/how-do-you-switch-from-wayland-back-to-xorg-in-ubuntu-17-10 – Takkat Nov 07 '17 at 09:54
  • Perfect, it does work logging in on "Ubuntu on Xorg", thanks. – Will Nov 07 '17 at 13:12

2 Answers2

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OK, so the answer (from Takkat's comment) is that the proprietary Nvidia drivers aren't supported on Wayland, which Ubuntu 17.10 now uses by default. Choosing "Ubuntu on Xorg" from the login screen made everything work again for me - see this answer.

Will
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0

Just be sure not to have any /etc/X11/xorg.conf* files. Run this:

sudo rm -v /etc/X11/xorg.conf*

and reboot.

I had this problem recently on Ubuntu 18.04, and while being on intel, I ran

nvidia-xconfig

then

sudo prime-select nvidia

and rebooted; but gdm would no longer load. So I booted on an USB live image and noticed two /etc/X11/xorg.conf* files which I removed (one empty and the nvidia-xconfig file backed up). Then rebooted again and I could log in having nvidia driver perfectly working.

Stephen Rauch
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cyberalex4life
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