Ubuntu Troubleshooting

Installation Errors or Graphical Oddities

Unfortunately, nvidia graphics cards do not always play nicely with Linux systems.

In particular, the Ubuntu setup/installer can have multiple, various issues, depending on your card.
This can range across multiple things, including:

• The mouse being invisible, but can still be moved and interact with the interface.
• The login screen looking very odd, or being incredibly slow and unresponsive.
• Black screens that don't show anything.
• Inability to get to the desktop.
• And more.

Generally speaking, the solution to this is twofold.

Installing and Getting to Desktop

First, you need to get through the installer and load the desktop.
Oftentimes, this can be done by telling Ubuntu to adjust graphics card and kernel settings.

As of Ubuntu18, this is done by:

• Hitting "e" before selecting an option (aka, before selecting "Install Ubuntu" or "Launch Ubuntu").
• Doing so should bring up several lines of code. You don't need to care about what it says exactly, just fine the line that starts with "linux" towards the bottom.
• At the end of this line, there are likely the words quiet splash or something similar.
• Edit this line to instead say nomodeset quiet splash.
• If using Ubuntu18, you can continue with launch by hitting the F10 key. This should now load your originally selected option, but hopefully minus any of the above issues.

{Warn | This is just a temporary fix. The next time you load your system, the defaults will load and you'll have to manually add "nomodeset" again, if you don't also follow the below steps. }

Selecting Nvidia Drivers

Once at the desktop, you'll likely want to try installing and loading proper nvidia drivers, as this often fixes the above mentioned issues.

First, open a terminal and run:

sudo ubuntu-drivers devices

If you have an nvidia card installed, then this will likely show something like nvidia-driver-xxx where xxx corresponds to a 3-digit number, such as 346, 430, etc.
If one of these lines says "recommended", then keep that number in mind. Otherwise, just remember one of them. Any one. These are the driver versions that should work with your card.

Now run the following commands:

sudo apt purge nvidia*
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nvidia-driver-xxx

Where the nvidia-driver-xxx corresponds to the 3-digit number mentioned above.

Finally, reboot your system and hopefully all your graphics issues should be resolved.