boot - Ubuntu 18.10: Installing nvidia drivers leads to black screen after GRUB

I upgraded from Ubuntu 18.04 to 18.10 without any errors. When I restarted, I got a black screen with a blinking cursor (couldn't type anything) right after GRUB. Pressing Ctrl-Alt-F2 got me to a terminal session.

I rebooted, then tried editing GRUB by pressing e and changing quiet splash to nomodeset. Pressed F10. It didn't work.

I had to reboot, press Ctrl-Alt-F2 then remove the nvidia drivers by typing sudo apt-get purge ^nvidia. Only then was Ubuntu able to boot successfully.

I installed the nvidia 340.107 drivers from the Additional Drivers tab in Software & Updates. Rebooting got me to the same black screen as before, and I had to purge the nvidia drivers again.

System: AMD FX-6300 CPU, Asrock 970 Extreme mobo, 8 GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 9600GT.

Thank you.

I had this issue too with the nvidia drivers and Ubuntu 18.10. I found a thread on the French Ubuntu website which helped me. It's a fix for Ubuntu 17.10 but it worked for me on 18.10.

Try this:

1. Edit /etc/gdm3/custom.conf:

   
   
   

   sudo gedit /etc/gdm3/custom.conf
   




2. Here uncomment the line

   
   
   
   

   #WaylandEnable=false
   

   
   
   

   which becomes also

   
   
   

   WaylandEnable=false
   

   
   
   

   Don't forget to save!

With this you should be able to install the nvidia drivers (I'm using the 390 version which works for me).

Source