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On 29/10/2018 12:12, Ian Dickinson wrote: > I've just ordered myself a new Cosmos VII laptop from PcSpecialist. > I've done a number of Ubuntu installs in the past, and generally > speaking they Just Work. Alas, not this time. > > The machine is an I7 CPU with the NVidia GTX 1050 graphics card, and > no other OS. > > * The first problem was that booting from the USB startup disk hangs > while either trying to "Try Ubuntu" or "Install Ubuntu". Googling > suggests that this is due to graphics driver issues, and to add > "nomodeset" to the grub boot command. This does indeed stop it > hanging, but: > > * the second problem is that with nomodeset on grub, the aspect ratio > of the installer is out-of-whack, and some of the dialog boxes are off > screen. It's kind-of OK because I can tab to the "ok" button to > proceed through the installation, even when it's off screen, but then: > > * having completed the installer, and booted to the Ubuntu login menu, > when I log in I get the "black screen of death" - a mouse pointer, but > then everything freezes up. Again, googling suggests maybe graphics > driver issues, but the suggested work around is to install the nvidia > drivers and I can't get a console up with ctl-alt-F2, even from the > boot screen > > * I also can't get the Grub boot menu to appear. The suggested route, > hitting shift after the BIOS boot, doens't work. Hitting ESC *does* > get the grub command line interface, but I'm not sure what I need to > do from there to get a text-mode boot. > > I haven't yet tried: disabling BIOS options, like secure boot, or > installing an older Ubuntu distro. I also feel that there are more > intelligent grub options I can other than just 'nomodeset' (I don't > really understand what that does, I just copied it from a forum > posting I found!), but I've reached the limit of my understanding of > the lower levels of Ubuntu. > > Very happy to receive any suggestions! > Thanks, > Ian > Amazing that stuff like this is _still_ happening in 2018, good work Nvidia :| A few things to try: check the EFI settings and see if anything strange is going on in there. I believe your laptop is an Optimus one with both Intel graphics built in to the CPU and the discrete 1050. Disabling the intelligent switching or temporarily completely disabling the Nvidia graphics entirely should at least let you boot cleanly into the new OS on Intel graphics alone and then you can install the Nvidia drivers, enable SSH, reboot and re-enable the 1050. It should then be ok. That's a bit dirty so I'd do this first: The grub menu only shows by default if you hold the LEFT shift down during boot in the very early stages. That being said this appears to be more of a guideline than anything else, some of my Ubuntu systems also only respond to Esc instead of left Shift like they should. Either way, once you can see the standard grub menu you'll see a list of options like so: https://cdn.instructables.com/F52/JUNA/HET0RS1T/F52JUNAHET0RS1T.LARGE.jpg If you choose the "Advanced options for Ubuntu" you'll get more options in pairs, 2 per installed kernel (so you might only have two options so far with just the default installation kernel). Selecting them will either start the system normally or start the same kernel in "rescue mode" which probably still isn't what you want. Rescue mode is now a systemd target rather than the crappy old runlevels so to take advantage of this properly select the very top non-rescue kernel and hit "e" to temporarily edit it for the current boot. You'll see the grub boot stanza so navigate down to the bottom where you see the line starting "linux" - edit this as follows. Move to the end of the line and delete "quiet splash $vt_handoff" and add this to the end: systemd.unit=multi-user.target My finished line in an Ubuntu VM looks like this: linux /vmlinuz-4.19.0-pf2-meowski+ root=/dev/mapper/wyrmwood--vg-root ro systemd.unit=multi-user.target Hit F10 or Ctrl+X to boot the system with your modified parameters and wait for the tty to pop up so you can login. "systemd.unit=multi-user.target" is the modern equivalent of the old boot to runlevel 3 trick and is going to be a lot more use to you than rescue mode (in modern terms: "systemd.unit=emergency.target") which doesn't start most of your services including the network.target. Once you're in make sure that before you go any further you install some remote access tools and make a note to yourself to disable them later if you want to (or better yet, firewall them off correctly). sudo apt install openssh* cockpit Even if you can't get into the system thanks to a non-responsive physical tty (I've got loads of Nvidia systems and have seen your exact problem more times than I care to remember) then you can either SSH to your laptop or if you'd prefer, point a browser on another system at https://1.2.3.4:9050 for graphical management. Report back with any issues and good luck :] I also hugely recommend you enable an Ubuntu repo with the latest graphics packages available - your 1050 is going to need it. sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa Should look something like this once you've installed the proper ones: ghost@failbot:~$ apt-cache policy nvidia-driver-410 | head -n 3 nvidia-driver-410: Installed: 410.73-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 Candidate: 410.73-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 Cheers -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG https://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq