HOW TO: Older NVIDIA GPU won't bring up Deskstop or graphical install

15 March 2023, 04:23:55

This is a description of how I completely fixed a no graphical display, no DE problem.

Note: from the online articles I read, this seems to be an NVIDIA problem with older GPUs. There may be other fixes, but this is how I did it.

Symptom: When you boot from your live install USB thumb drive, it comes up in command line, no graphics. Also, when you try to start something graphical, you can get the "blinking cursor screen of death" which flashes a cursor usually in the upper left corner. Another symptom if you are running gdm is it will blink to a black screen and come back to a login screen. Oddly you choose GNOME and it works.

I did the command line install. and so this assumes you will do that.

To get out of the "screen of death" if you are trapped there, hit ctrl-alt-F2. That will get you back to the command line.

From the command line, follow the directions in the Wiki-Installation up until the "exit - reboot" step, but don't unmount or exit. You want to say as root working in your mounted partitions so the changes are permanent. Note this assumes you went with openrc. I used lightdm and cinnamon also. I'd start by getting those working and make changes later.

First you have to create the xorg.conf file. For the newbie like me, this is the simplest way to do it. You can write your own from scratch if you want.

(NOTE: follow Wiki-Repositories method to install [universe] . Remember to pacman -Sy to register your updates.)

type: pacman -S nvidia-utils.
type: nvidia-xconfig

This creates the xorg.conf file. Verify it worked:

type: cd /etc/X11 (note capital X)
type: ls

You should see xorg.conf

Now remove nvidia utils because you don't need them

type: pacman -Rsc nvidia-utils

Now you have to edit the xorg.conf file:

type: nano xorg.conf

Go down to Section "Device"
Edit driver so it says "nouveau" with the quotes
Edit VendorName so it says "FreeDesktop.org" (optional, but do it for completeness).
crtl-o to write. enter. ctrl-x to exit nano.

From the articles I read, this will prevent the blinking cursor of death and also allow X to start. So you are probably free to install the DM and desktop you want. So the following is optional, but it worked for me:

Next install cinnamon: pacman -S cinnamon

Install lightdm: pacman -S lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter lightdm-openrc

cd /etc/lightdm

nano lightdm.conf

go down to seat[:*]

Verify: run-directory=/run/lightdm should not have a hash sign in front of it.

uncomment (remove hash) from user-session = , and change to user-session = cinnamon

Verify: session-wrapper=/etc/lightdm/Xsession should not have a hash in front of it.

ctrl-o to write. enter. crtl-x to exit.

Now you can test it.

type: lightdm --test-mode --debug

You should come up in Cinnamon.

If you have problems, check logs in /var/log/

type: cd /var/log
type: less Xorg.0.log

Also check lightdm log:
cd lightdm
less lightdm.log
less x-0.log

Assuming no problems, ctrl-alt-F2 to get back to the CLI

Add to openrc
type: rc-update add lightdm default
You should get a confirmation it updated.

umount -R /mnt
reboot
Pull out thumb drive and you should start up in graphics mode.