Fix PopOs/Ubuntu linux Black Screen.

It was one weekend where I had to finish a bunch of stuff related to 3D. I’m using blender on PopOs 20.04 (never been a windows fan). I was also doing some AI stuff during that week and because of that I installed bunch of nvidia drivers and updates for my GPU. When I arrived home and fired up my PC, it just stays black and never went to login screen. I waited and waited and waited……. But there was nothing. It was my first time that I encountered the issue so I have no clue what’s going on. Long story short, here is the fix for others that may encounter the same issue andto save you from googling.

Note: This is only applicable for NVIDIA graphics card and only if your sure that you did some updates on you nvidia graphics card drivers or any gpu related updates.

#1. Boot to recovery mode

To do this, it’s going to be a bit tricky. First, reboot or turn on your computer. While the system is booting hold down the left SHIFT key. If you miss that, just hard reset (Long press the power button) your computer and do it again until you get to the recovery menu.

Recovery Menu

Once your in the recovery menu. Select Drop to root shell prompt using your arrow keys. This should take you to your shell command. Now, you can proceed to the next step.

#2. Remove NVIDIA Driver

Now we have to remove all nvidia related packages. To do this, execute the following commands:

This will remove/purge nvidia packages.

sudo apt-get remove nvidia* && sudo apt autoremove

Install some packages for build kernel.

sudo apt-get install dkms build-essential linux-headers-generic

Now block and disable nouveau kernel driver. Nouveau kernel driver is kind of the default nvidia graphics driver used by Linux kernel. If you want to know more about nouveau kernel driver, here is the link https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/. Now you don’t have to do this, your system should be back to working condition after kernel re-build and reboot. But for the sake of my insanity and for the reason that I wanted to install the latest nvidia driver for linux and if your like me then please follow through.

sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Insert the following lines to blacklist.conf.

blacklist nouveau
blacklist lbm-nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0
alias nouveau off
alias lbm-nouveau off

Save and Exit.

Disable the Kernel nouveau by typing the following commands(nouveau-kms.conf may not exist,it is ok).

echo options nouveau modeset=0 | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau-kms.conf

Build the new kernel.

sudo update-initramfs -u

Now, reboot.

After reboot, you’re system should be good and you should see your login screen. BUT it will be the lowest resolution. So like I said, you do not need to block or disable nouveau kernel driver so you will not have the resolution issue.

#3. Install the latest supported Nvidia driver

Now go to your operating system Software Center. In my case, I’m using PopOs so it’s the Pop!_Shop. Click on the installed shop and look for Nvidia driver. Install it and you should be running in no time.