new laptop, new install, black screen after login

[dbaker]

I just got a new custom laptop. No OS installed.
Specs:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 2GB GDDR5 VRAM
Intel Core i7-7700HQ Processor
16GB RAM
Crucial MX300 525GB SATA 3 M.2 SSD
1TB 7200RPM HDD

So, I first tried to install KDE neon on it. I had to edit the bootline with [#]nosplash nouveau.modeset=0 [/#] or else it froze during the neon splash screen, but adding those params fixed the issue.
However, the installer was broken in other ways (not corrupted, the checksum was fine - it's just buggy). So I then tried installing Kubuntu 17.10 instead.

The Kubuntu install went smoothly, in fact I didn't even need to edit the bootline - no nouveau issues (initially).
After installing and booting Kubuntu for the first time, though, this is what happened:

1. Kubuntu splash appears (with the blue glow)
2. Login screen appears
3. I type my password and click log in
4. Plasma splash shows briefly, then everything freezes

On subsequent boots, the plasma splash doesn't even show, it's just black.

I wasn't able to get into tty - none of the keyboard shortcuts I tried worked, if you have any suggestions please tell me.

My sysadmin coworker had a Mageia recovery USB (it was the only one we could find in the office!) and plugged that in and was able to mount my drive and edit the bootline that way. But said he wouldn't be able to run update-grub from the live usb (for reasons I don't fully understand) and instead he manually edited the file that update-grub normally generates, to match the bootline.

After rebooting we still got a black screen after logging in.

I would really appreciate some help with this, as I have no idea what to try next...

[mr_raider]

From the login screen, hit ctrl-alt-f1 to open a terminal. Login and try to install the nvidia driver

sudo apt install nvidia-3xx

replace 3xx with right driver series. For your case, it's probably 384 or 387

[oshunluvr]

I haven't tried to use 17.10 yet so I can't help you there., but I've installed KDEneon several times and never had an issue with the installer or my nVidia GTX 780. Did you use the "User LTS" or "User" versions or did you try the "Developer" version? It does seem likely that's it a video card issue.

You can manually edit and test grub options by pressing "e" when the grub menu appears. This will expose the grub boot lines and allow you to edit. This is a good way to test grub options before making them permanent. Edit done this way are not saved and the next reboot will return your system to it's previous state. This saves you having to find a USB to boot to. Once you get the option working, you can add them to /etc/default/grub and update-grub to make them permanent.

So do the above and edit your boot line, removing "quiet splash" and replacing it with "text". This should get you to the tty log in screen. Log in and type "cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | more" and scroll down through the file looking for errors. Also "dmesg" output can be useful.

[dbaker]

Did you use the "User LTS" or "User" versions or did you try the "Developer" version?

I used the User LTS version. I've never tried that one before, I've used the User and Dev versions successfully in the past. But haven't done an neon install for maybe 6 months or so.

When I tried to install Neon yesterday, here's what happened: it seemed to completely corrupt the boot partition after I manually partitioned across 2 disks. My coworker said it tried to install in BIOS mode instead of UEFI even though the live usb was recognised as UEFI, or something.
The more we tried to repair it the more corrupted everything got and eventually we just gave up and wiped the partitions and did a default partition table, then it kept failing to install grub during the installation.
In addition to all that, there was a link to "update this installer" in the welcome screen that seemed to download stuff but didn't give any indication that it was doing so - no way to tell when it had finished, except sit and watch the network monitor!

[dbaker]

From the login screen, hit ctrl-alt-f1 to open a terminal. Login and try to install the nvidia driver

sudo apt install nvidia-3xx

replace 3xx with right driver series. For your case, it's probably 384 or 387

Thank you so much, I got it working! I installed the nvidia-384 driver. I think what we were doing wrong was that we were trying to get into tty during startup, not at the login screen.

There are still some graphics issues to sort out - SVGs and text randomly not rendering properly/turning into colorful glitches, and compositing not working. But the worst is over.

[mr_raider]

You have a laptop with Intel CPU and Nvidia gpu. That means there is likely come kind of graphics switching going on between the Intel IGP and the discrete gpu.

Ubuntu has tools to manage this. I think it's called Optimus, prime, bumblebee or Omega supreme for all I know.

Look into it.