13.04 boot problem after install

[feardotcom]

Hello,

So i decided to install ubuntu 13.04 alongside my W7 machine. I finally ordered a new wifi adapter that is compatible with linux and im trying to get my wife off windows cause of all the damn viruses on facebook games (i've cleaned off atleast 5 so far.) Anyway, After installing (from USB) grub comes up and i select Ubuntu, it goes to a purple screen for a second and then goes to a black screen with flasing "-" at the top left. I used to have 12.04 installed but when i moved i had to buy a wifi adapter i bought one that wasn't compatible with linux and bestbuy wouldn't refund it. After a week of having to recompile the drivers after every update i said the hell with it. Anyway, does anyone have any clue as to what is going on?

[oldfred]

Have you used the nomodeset boot option? With nVidia that is just about required to install and first boot after install. Some computers also need other boot parameters in addition.

How to set NOMODESET and other kernel boot options in grub2
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132
BIOS live installer Boot Options
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions

[feardotcom]

actually, i counldn't find any answers last night and didn't read this thread till now. I tried installing a 12.04 image. It gave me the same problems as 12.04 surprisingly because i had no problems with 12.04 in the past. So after digging through my desk for my 8gb that i saved my original 12.04 on i finally found it. I installed it and it worked fine. However i had alot of problems with drivers at first. Saying it was activated but not in use. I finally found on the internet to install linux generic headers. i tried that through term, but no good, said it was in use, so i tried synaptic and it worked fine. I did the updates and everything is fine now.

However, i tried using gnome 3 before i realized my video drivers weren't working correctly and when i went into gnome 3, it hanged and i rebooted and i no long had th nice fancy ubuntu log in screen, its the plain box in the middle of the screen. How do i get that back?

[oldfred]

Re: How To Install Nvidia Drivers [v8.1.2.12 by Bogan]. post 1126
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1743535&page=113
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2081649
# You may need headers - meta package for current version:
apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic

# only reason to purge is there are several versions, if you know you have different nVidia use that:
#To see available versions:
dpkg -l | grep -i nvidia*
apt-cache search nvidia-sett*
# Houseclean out all old versions to avoid issues
sudo apt-get remove --purge < nvidiadriverpackagename>
# [ using the correct names] for each driver, before running:
sudo apt-get purge nvidia*

# Install version you prefer
# I used nvidia-current-updates & nvidia-settings-updates, example below is just nvidia-current
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
sudo apt-get install nvidia-settings
sudo dpkg-reconfigure nvidia-current
sudo nvidia-xconfig
sudo reboot
May want nvidia-current, nvidia-current-updates or nvidia-current-experimental-XXX for most recent testing version.
apt-cache search nvidia-sett*

From bogan
To bring it fully up to date, instead of: 'nvidia-installer --update', use 'nvidia-installer -f --dkms'.
The '-f' option implies the inclusion of: '--update', but will force a re-installation even if the currently installed version is the same as the 'latest' which it will download and install.
The '--dkms' option, with driver versions 3.04.xx and later, will check that 'dkms' is installed and offer the option to register the driver with dkms, so the kernal module gets updated automatically when a new kernal is installed. and does not need to be manually re-installed.