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Torben Gundtofte-Bruun
Asked: 2012-11-10 06:04:36 +0800 CST

Unity doesn't appear after installing Nvidia drivers

  • 772

I've just installed 12.10 from scratch. Unity also started okay, but in a poor resolution. I found a setting (I think it was in "software sources") to change the display driver to Nvidia, and then I rebooted.

When Ubuntu now starts, it goes to the desktop (I see a file that I saved to the desktop) but there are no other screen elements -- no Unity, no menu bar at the top, no window decoration, nothing.

Ctrl-Alt-T and Ctrl-Alt-F2 work as they should, but it's kinda limiting...

  1. How can I restore the default driver? I guess I need a way to open those "software sources" settings again - or anything else that could fix it! I hope I don't have to type all this by hand.
  2. How can I install a proper Nvidia driver so that I can get up to 1280x1024? My old tricks don't seem to work, but perhaps they might if I solve #1...
unity

5 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I just went through this myself, the problem is that there is a bug in the Ubuntu installer that removes the Linux Headers needed for the Nvidia drivers to work.

    You'll need to do the following:

    From a terminal:

    sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic && sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current && sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

    If you don't see output from nvidia-current being installed then one of the first two commands failed.

    You'll need to reboot, and once you do you'll be able to use your computer again.

    • 19

  2. To restore the default driver you have to uninstall the package nvidia-current. You can do this in your STTYs (Ctrl-Alt-F[1-6]).

    sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current

    Afterwards simply reboot and you should be fine.

    • 6

  3. The headers I have were newer than the kernel I was running. For that reason I had to upgrade my kernel version. Then, I would recommend the following procedure:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install linux-source
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic
sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
    • 2

  4. In my case the problem was the proprietary driver from NVIDIA which doesn't work on Optimus laptops. All I had to do was running

    sudo nvidia-uninstall

    and removing /etc/X11/xorg.conf

    OBS: You need to turn off X server to do that. Use ctrl+alt+f1 to go to "interfaceless" mode and type

    sudo stop lightdm

    After uninstalling run

    sudo start lightdm
    • 1

  5. I had the same issue, nothing helped until I ran this:

    sudo apt-get autoremove fglrx --purge
    • 0