Please be aware that this answer may become slightly outdated. I will do my best to update it regularly, but I can't guarantee anything. The driver version used below may not be the latest. Please check the Launchpad page to confirm.

Each of the issues described (and maybe even more) can be fixed by following the steps below.

If you're installing Ubuntu, follow section 3.

1. First make sure you can enter a TTY

Press Ctrl+Alt+F1

If this brings you to a black screen with a login prompt, continue on. Otherwise, you will likely have to boot with a special kernel flag. Instructions are below.

2. Now for the fix

1. Log into your account in the TTY.
2. Run sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*
3. Run sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa and then sudo apt-get update.
4. Run sudo apt-get install nvidia-driver-430.
5. Reboot and your graphics issue should be fixed.

3. If you are unable to enter a TTY or are trying to install Ubuntu

1. Reboot into GRUB.
2. Highlight the Ubuntu option and press E.
3. Add nouveau.modeset=0 to the end of the line beginning with linux.
4. Press F10 to boot.
5. Follow the instructions above.
   • (If installing Ubuntu, ignore this step, but follow the rest of the tutorial after the installation is finished.)

This solution should fix many problems described by users after an upgrade to 16.04. If a fresh install is affected, the solution is the same.

If you run into problems afterward, you should ask a different question. (Refer to this question so that we know it isn't a duplicate.) However, there are a few other small fixes you can try out before you do.

• Reinstall Xorg

  • Go back into the TTY and run sudo apt-get purge xorg-* xserver-xorg; sudo apt-get install xorg xserver-xorg; sudo dpkg-reconfigure xorg.

• Reinstall your desktop environment

  • If on Unity, run sudo apt-get purge ubuntu-desktop; sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop.
  • If on GNOME run sudo apt-get purge ubuntu-gnome-desktop gnome-desktop-environment; sudo apt-get install ubuntu-gnome-desktop.
  • If on MATE run sudo apt-get purge ubuntu-mate-desktop mate-desktop-environment; sudo apt-get install ubuntu-mate-desktop
  • Each Ubuntu DE has its own package name. If you have KDE or something else, the name should be similar to the ones above.
• Fresh reinstall
  • It's not the most inviting option, but sometimes it's the best thing to do in cases like this.

Please remember that there are a lot of things that can go wrong, and this is not a guaranteed fix for everything. Even if you are experiencing something listed in the question, the solution may not fully work for you.

This answer is merely for driver issues with 16.04 and nVIDIA. Your issue may go deeper than a bad driver.

Other issues after the fix

• If you get to a working display, but run into a login loop (you login and get returned to the login screen), take a look here.

I installed Ubuntu 16.04 and everything worked fine until I switched to NVIDIA driver. After rebooting I couldn't get past the login screen. The solution that worked for me was to disable secure boot.

While stuck in login loop, I switched to console Ctl+Alt+F1, rebooted and disabled secure boot in UEFI. Now everything works with nvidia driver installed.

For The display is blank & The display flickers

I faced the same issue but now every thing works fine.

There are two solutions to this:

1. Use NVIDIA driver version 364 from the Graphics drivers PPA (Best Option)

   • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
   • sudo apt update && sudo apt install nvidia-364

2. Use LightDM instead of GDM

   • sudo apt-get install lightdm
   • choose lightdm as the default when prompted.

NOTE If that didn't work for you, install intel-microcode (if available) from the Additional Drivers app before installing the NVIDIA driver.

I upgraded from Ubuntu GNOME 15.10 to 16.04 and was faced with a black screen. Using systemctl status and digging through logs, I found that the proprietary NVidia drivers were broken.

Purging nvidia-* and reinstalling gdm got me to low-graphics mode, but reinstalling the NVidia drivers brought back the black screen. As it turns out, Secure Boot had been set to "Windows" in the BIOS settings. I changed it to "Other", and my issue was solved.

Before I found the Secure Boot option I'd tried purging and reinstalling nvidia-*, xorg*, xserver-xorg, ubuntu-gnome-desktop, gnome-desktop-environment. I'm not sure whether or not this helped, but it seems best to put it in. Also, the upgrade tool had said that it would have to disable Secure Boot in order to succeed, but that it would turn it back on afterwards. That is what led me to go look for it.

I checked the X11 log file at /var/log/Xorg.0.log for (EE) error entries:

root@computer:/var/log# grep EE Xorg.0.log
    (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[   156.124] (EE) No devices detected.
[   156.127] (EE) no screens found(EE) 

so the graphics card was not detected by the nouveau driver.

checking the installed card with lspci gave the following result:

root@computer:/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d$ lspci | grep NVIDIA 
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210]    (rev a2)
02:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)

With this type of graphics card the answers recommending to install the NVIDIA drivers given here didn't help me since the latest NVIDIA driver doesn't support my card.

Therefore after some internet search i found the suggestion to help the X11 system a bit by specifying the details of the card in a file

/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nouveau-conf and using the info from the lspci command:

# lspci | grep NVIDIA 
# 02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] (rev a2)
Section "Device"
   Identifier  "NvidiaGraphics"
   Driver      "nouveau"
   VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
   BusID    "PCI:2:0:0"   
EndSection

Now things work like expected and no (EE) error lines show up in the log file.

For those who are following the guide but the problem still appears, then maybe it has something to do with the driver itself.

Some of the NVIDIA's GPUs doesn't play well with the newest driver. If you've suspected that you're the victim of that problem, then you can follow my guide below.

Below are just copy paste answer from my own question here.

I did it!! It was a problem with the driver itself!

Problem : My Card (NVIDIA GTX980M) doesn't run well with new proprietary NVIDIA Linux driver. Solution : Use the old driver that supports my graphic card.

Basically, after lurking the internet for a while, some people said that maybe I can try to use stable nvidia-352 instead of new drivers.

However, upon looking at apt-cache search nvidia-352, I have found out that nvidia-352 is just a transition driver for nvidia-361 graphic driver.

However, based on my previous test, nvidia-361 up to newest (nvidia-370 at the time of writing) is the source of my problem.

So I need to download the exact nvidia-352 instead of transition nvidia-361.

If you're having the same problem as mine, then below are the steps on how I solved it.

Steps :

1. Uninstall all your current problematic NVIDIA drivers.

   sudo apt-get purge nvidia-* libcuda-* 
   

   .

2. Create temporary folder to store nvidia-352 required files

   cd ~/Desktop
   mkdir nvidia-352
   cd nvidia-352
   

   .

3. Download the required files for nvidia-352 graphic driver.

   wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/libcuda1-352_352.63-0ubuntu3_amd64.deb
   wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/nvidia-libopencl1-352_352.63-0ubuntu3_amd64.deb
   wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/nvidia-opencl-icd-352_352.63-0ubuntu3_amd64.deb
   wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/nvidia-352_352.63-0ubuntu3_amd64.deb
   

   Edit 1:

   If you have problem downloading nvidia-352_352.63-0ubuntu3_amd64.deb from the link above (occurred to me), you can also download it from different sources.

   Here is an alternative link for that file :

   http://mirrors.mit.edu/ubuntu/pool/restricted/n/nvidia-graphics-drivers-352/nvidia-352_352.63-0ubuntu0.15.10.1_amd64.deb
   

   Edit 2:

   The links above is for 64-bit NVIDIA driver, for those who are looking for 32-bit then do a look at below link :

   https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers-352
   

   The steps are just the same, just you need to download a different files that support your 32-bit setup.

   .

4. Install all the debs files.

   sudo dpkg -i *.deb
   

   .

5. Reboot

   .

Voila! If you booted into your desktop without having a single crash, then you have successfully solved this graphic problem!

Enjoy! :D

After struggling with this issue for a day and a half, eventually it was solved by disabling secure boot in Bios settings. during installation of driver I was prompted to disable secure boot and I did, but somehow, perhaps because windows is also installed, it was not disabled (while installing). rebooting and pressing F2 (on Asus) I got into Bios, security, then disabled secure boot. rebooted, and voila! Although this may be specific to certain bios versions or dual boot systems, no one posted this solution here before.

I tried many solutions and non worked. Finally, I tried this and worked perfectly, without any need to do things like sudo service lightdm stop and so on. Just run the followings:

This shows you the list of compatible drivers for your devices: sudo ubuntu-drivers list

Then run to install the compatible ones:

sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall

Finally do (or just restart your machine):

sudo service lightdm restart

Every day I check for update and download them using Software Updater. But last night Ubuntu asked me for a partial download (said, something not installed correctly - something like that), so I follow Partial Download process. End of the download process it asked for a restart, so I restart Ubuntu. After reboot, the boot logo and login window are on low-resolution, login loop and no internet connection (wifi + ethernet both I tried)! So, I can't even log in!

I'm using Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS in ASUS X556UQ Laptop.

After a long experiment (trying above and other solution from Google), I find that the problem occurs for the latest Linux Kernel 4.8.0-42 with Nvidia 378 driver! So I downgrade to Nvidia 370 driver using TTY (Ctrl + Alt + F1) and restart Ubuntu using Linux Kernel 4.8.0-41 (Using grub menu) and all problem solved!

When I first installed Ubuntu 16.04.1 I had graphics issues that were resolved by using nvidia-304 (already mentioned above as a solution). I just updated my system a week or so ago and since then I found myself in the "can't log in loop problem" as many people has already described. Logging in via a tty, I tried installing nvidia-304, 324, 350, and 370. NONE of them worked. Finally I tried something very drastic. I installed Xubuntu 16.04.1. It worked immediately with NO specific effort on my part. So it seems the problem is intimately tied to the desktop manager (Gnome). So if you can switch to Xfce from within a shell window, you might be good with your current version of Ubuntu (sorry but I don't know how to do that). Otherwise, install Xubuntu.

Good luck!