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I've been trying to get Ubuntu to work (dual booted with Win7) on my new computer for a week now and have not found a working solution. System specs:

  • Intel Core i7-4771 @ 3.50 GHz
  • 250 GB SSD Samsung 840 EVO
  • 16 GB RAM
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 660

The last item is the suspected culprit...

I first installed 12.04 which worked fine (but did not detect my nvidia card) until it updated, then one of two things happened (I have reinstalled 12.04 several times): 1) I got a white screen but with the mouse visible, and it was possible to open a graphical terminal with Ctrl-t and run programs from there. 2) After updating the nvidia driver I got a completely black screen and could not even open a terminal using Ctrl-Alt-F1.

I then tried installing 13.10 but it freezes on splash screen and I cannot use Ctrl-Alt-F1 to open a terminal. I can't even get the keyboard to work in failsafe mode!

I'm not familiar with debugging this kind of problem and would really appreciate help. As it is now i can't use Ubuntu, which is a shame...

Mikael
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2 Answers2

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Thanks for the reply floppy!

What I did in the end was to do a clean install of 12.04 and install nvidia-304. Then I got the familiar black screen with a white-outline cross, but when I typed my password and hit "enter" i got a white screen and could do Alt-t to open a terminal.

What eventally solved it was switching to Unity 2d by typing:

sudo /usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm-set-defaults -s ubuntu-2d

Now, after installing mesa-utils, the system recognized my graphics card and I can see that it is in use by using the command:

sudo /sbin/lsmod | grep nvidia

I will have to make due with unity 2d :)

Mikael
  • 61
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I suppose you updated your video driver using the nvidia-331 driver package which includes the latest driver for your video card. And you used in a terminal some code like this one:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-331

or maybe you used the 304 version

sudo apt-get install nvidia-304

I guess the nvidia-304 package is ok for your video card but I am not sure since I have never tested it. I hope you have not updated video driver to nvidia-319 since this one can cause problems for GeForce 600 series graphic cards.

Nvidia-331 should work fine for you but if it doesn't then I suggest you install a fresh copy of ubuntu 13.10. I am a newbie, and I don't like ugrading to a higher version of ubuntu because I know very little about linux, and I could end up just like you with problems that I cannot solve by myself.

As for your video card, you should try go to NVIDIA website, in the Drivers section, and look for a linux driver in there : GeForce - GeForce 600 series - GeForce GTX 660 - Linux 32 or 64 bits, whatever you're using. There are plenty of tutorials on how to install a genuine NVIDIA driver in ubuntu, and if you can find a decent video driver, updating the drivers for your video card should not be a problem.

Taz D.
  • 2,255