Arch Linux

67south

Member

Registered: 2018-07-07

Posts: 2

nvidia GTX1080ti - nothing on console after "Loading initial ramdisk..

Hi,

I'm sure something like this will have been posted before, but I've read through the Nvidia setup entry on the wiki and various other forum posts and am no further forward.

This is my first time installing Arch, but I have plenty of experience with Linux generally.  I've got the main system up and running, and am now trying to get an X desktop working, using my GTX1080ti.  I have the same card and machine working under Debian stable, using the nvidia drivers from stretch-backports.

In Arch, I ran 'pacman -S nvidia' and allowed it to install what it wanted.  The installation also rebuilt the initial ramdisk.  On reboot, I get as far as:

'Booting Arch Linux

Loading Linux linux...
Loading initial ramdisk...'

then nothing appears on the console.  At this point with the Debian installation I get a brief flash of the Nvidia logo, before the system boots into the display manager, so I'm assuming there's an issue with initialising the drivers that's preventing me passing that stage.

The rest of the system is running fine -- I can SSH and and run commands, so it's booted; there's just nothing on the display.

'lsmod | grep nvidia'  gives me

nvidia_drm             45056  0
drm_kms_helper        200704  1 nvidia_drm
drm                   471040  3 drm_kms_helper,nvidia_drm
nvidia_uvm            913408  0
nvidia_modeset       1089536  1 nvidia_drm
nvidia              14045184  2 nvidia_uvm,nvidia_modeset
ipmi_msghandler        57344  2 ipmi_devintf,nvidia

Any pointers gratefully received!

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,688

Re: nvidia GTX1080ti - nothing on console after "Loading initial ramdisk..

This is the current driver and it looks like the 1080ti is supported: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverRe … 3859/en-us

Are you sure there is nothing? Does the screen go blank or does it still show "Loading inital..."? Have you tried logging in blindly and causing a wall of text that fills the screen to see, if it's just an overscan problem hiding your prompt in an offscreen line? Like "find / | xargs"?

dockland

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2015-06-06

Posts: 861

Re: nvidia GTX1080ti - nothing on console after "Loading initial ramdisk..

Did you install xorg?

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I use it to look at funny pictures of cats and to argue with strangers.

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 78,843

Re: nvidia GTX1080ti - nothing on console after "Loading initial ramdisk..

What if you boot into the multi-user.target? (see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sy … boot_into)
Is there a running X11 server? Can you please post the xorg log?
What's your graphical.target? Some DM? Does startx work?

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

67south

Member

Registered: 2018-07-07

Posts: 2

Re: nvidia GTX1080ti - nothing on console after "Loading initial ramdisk..

Thanks for the suggestions so far -- with a bit of prompting I've got it working.  For the benefit of future readers:

* The screen isn't totally blank -- the 'Loading initial ramdisk...' message remains, with a frozen cursor on the line below it.  Trying to log in blind and then generate text doesn't work.

* Xorg is installed.  If I log in via SSH and then become root and run   'Xorg :0'  the display goes completely black, so it does kinda do _something_ -- enough to clear the message and cursor mentioned above.

* Running 'startx' was what lead to the fix -- it complained about being unable to find xterm, twm, and xclock, before bailing out.  'pacman -S xterm' and running startx again got me a display with a few terminals, from where I could run xmonad.

* systemctl start lightdm still doesn't work, but gdm does, so while I still have some digging to do to get things 100% as I want them, this is enough to get up and running.

Thanks guys!

dockland

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2015-06-06

Posts: 861

Re: nvidia GTX1080ti - nothing on console after "Loading initial ramdisk..

Regarding lightdm, make sure you've got an installed greeter unchecked.
Like

/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
[Seat:*]
...
greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter
...

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LightDM

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I possess a device, in my pocket, that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man.
I use it to look at funny pictures of cats and to argue with strangers.

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,113

Re: nvidia GTX1080ti - nothing on console after "Loading initial ramdisk..

Regarding lightdm, make sure you've got an installed greeter unchecked.
Like

/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
[Seat:*]
...
greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter
...

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LightDM

Not needed for lightdm-gtk-greeter.