login loop even after remove nvidia driver

Question

I've got infinite loop problem after installing CUDA (which automatically install nvidia driver). I have tried removing nvidia driver with

sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-*
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

and removing /etc/X11/xorg.conf, but the problem is still not solved. I have also tried logging into tty and run startx from there, but with no luck.

My laptop has a Intel integrated graphics controller, and a nvidia Geforce 970M video card. Right now when I run lspci, I can see it's running on the Intel graphics controller.

Any idea how to solve this login loop problem?

The message in ~/.xsession-errors is listed below:

Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0".
Script for ibus started at run_im.
init: gnome-session (Unity) main process (1761) terminated with status 1
init: unity-settings-daemon main process (1752) killed by TERM signal
init: logrotate main process (1652) killed by TERM signal
init: update-notifier-crash (/var/crash/_opt_google_chrome_chrome.1000.crash) main process (1691) killed by TERM signal
init: update-notifier-crash (/var/crash/_usr_lib_x86_64-linux-gnu_indicator-application_indicator-application-service.1000.crash) main process (1696) killed by TERM signal
init: xsession-init main process (1748) killed by TERM signal
init: hud main process (1757) killed by TERM signal
init: Disconnected from notified D-Bus bus
init: unity-panel-service main process (1766) killed by TERM signal
Xsession: X session started for root at Wed Nov 11 05:49:16 EST 2015
localuser:root being added to access control list
Script for ibus started at run_im.
Script for ibus started at run_im.
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":1".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":1".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":1".
gnome-session-is-accelerated: No hardware 3D support.
gnome-session-check-accelerated: Helper exited with code 256
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":1".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":1".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":1".
gnome-session-is-accelerated: No hardware 3D support.
gnome-session-check-accelerated: Helper exited with code 256
x-session-manager[2248]: WARNING: software acceleration check failed: Child process exited with code 1
x-session-manager[2248]: CRITICAL: We failed, but the fail whale is dead. Sorry....

Answer 1

In my case (GeForce 980, running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS), the issue was solved by disabling the Nouveau drivers and using the latest NVIDIA proprietary driver:

1.) Download the NVIDIA driver install script. Since you're stuck in a login loop, you can download the driver on another machine and scp it over to the affected machine. Don't run the script just yet.

2.) From the terminal, use nano, vim, or another editor to create a file called "/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf"

3.) In blacklist-nouveau.conf, include the following lines:

blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0

4.) Next, run the following command:$ sudo update-initramfs -u

5.) Run the NVIDIA driver install script with sudo. To be sure you're using the most recent version, use the update option. This downloads the most recent driver from ftp://download.nvidia.com and automatically downloads and installs it. For example, using the 361.42 driver:

$ sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-361.42.run --update

Go through the iterative process of installing the driver.

6.) Run $ sudo nvidia-xconfig to generate a new xorg.conf

7.) Reboot.

8.) If you're trying to run CUDA as well, install it after getting the latest NVIDIA drivers all set with steps 1-7. Alternatively, the CUDA installer gives you the opportunity to install the proprietary NVIDIA drivers along with the nvcc toolkit.

Good luck!

Answer 2

The easiest way to get the nvidia driver working at least for me was to use lightdm as display manager, delete .Xauthority file and install drivers and reboot, everything came up fine. I tried all the other recommendations online and none worked but this one, install which ever flavor of ubuntu you want install lightdm and configure the system to use lightdm, delete .Xauthority file and the install nvidia driver, reboot and all worked for me, then you should be able to install cuda.