Blank screen after grub - again

[Jonners59]

I am having major, repeating problems on a number of machines all on the latest kernel/Ubuntu version, xfce and nvidia cards.

This machines
Running 15.04 64-bit
linux: 3.19.0-21
Intel Core i7-4820k CPU @3.70Ghz
Nvidia GF108 GeForce GT430
nvidi driver nvidia-352

This machine after GRUB has the black screen and cursor. ctrl+alt+F1 or F2 does nothing and going in to recovery mode does not work either as no commands work even sudo shutdown -r now

Any help please?

[grahammechanical]

I am not familiar with the age of those graphic adapters but I think that nvidia 352 is one of the latest nvidia drivers. From my experience with a nvidia GT 220 the latest nvidia drivers do not have support for some older nvidia adapters. Check the Nvidia web site to see what the recommend Linux driver is. We can also check the drivers to see what adapters they support.

Regards

[Jonners59]

I am not familiar with the age of those graphic adapters but I think that nvidia 352 is one of the latest nvidia drivers. From my experience with a nvidia GT 220 the latest nvidia drivers do not have support for some older nvidia adapters. Check the Nvidia web site to see what the recommend Linux driver is. We can also check the drivers to see what adapters they support.

Regards

It is the correct and latest driver. It did work, but I find it unreliable. Always end up by failing after a couple of uses.... Not limited to this driver, seems to have started with Ubuntu 14:10 and continued in to 15:04...

[ajgreeny]

Did you try the driver that is the default in Additional Drivers?

That may work far better than such a new one.

[Jonners59]

Did you try the driver that is the default in Additional Drivers?

That may work far better than such a new one.
Yes, that is where I started..... Things started to go wrong for me and MANY others after 14:10 upgrade. Seem to be a number of bugs out. However, that is not my problem now. I need and want to get this machine going. So far after GRUB and the scripts it stops before the login screen. However, I have managed to fix things in the past by ctrl+alt+F1 and installing the drivers, but it will not let me do anything. ctrl+alt+F1 does not work and in Recovery mode none of the commands work.

Any ideas, please, anyone.

[ajgreeny]

Have you tried just using the open source nouveau driver?

I think I remember reading in a few places where nouveau was working very well with that card as long as it used the nomodeset boot option.

[Jonners59]

Have you tried just using the open source nouveau driver?

I think I remember reading in a few places where nouveau was working very well with that card as long as it used the nomodeset boot option.

Yes, but also nouveau does not have 3d rendering, it is just a basic driver... That said it is still not the main issue, I can not add, purge or do anything as I can not login and ctrl+alt+F1 does not work. I need to get access to the PC first....

[Jonners59]

OK, I created a new install in parallel, as nothing worked and no one seems to know what is wrong.

I now want to move/copy my panels and desktop settings over to the new image so I do not have to start all over.

What has what...... that I can copy over??????

[oldfred]

All your user settings should be in /home. Only if you manually made system wide settings for hardware like your Ethernet card may some settings also be in /etc.

My backup is so I can document system and restore it easily.
Oldfred's list of stuff to backup May 2011 (still mostly current, see added links below):
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1748541
Adding extra commands to rsync
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2260658
More detail on /etc files and others to backup - post #3:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1500559
Some files(temp, cache etc) to exclude from /home backup - post #8 by Paddy Landau
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1883834
http://askubuntu.com/questions/545655/backup-your-home-directory-with-rsync-and-skip-useless-folders

Did you experiment with different nVidia drivers. If you do not completely purge one before installing another, you will have issues.

[Jonners59]

Thanks OldFred, will review these... :-)