[SOLVED] black screen with solid white cursor - broke display manager?

bonobo_witha_bazooka · 2021-12-21 01:40:24

hello hello

I've been the proud mother of an arch linux laptop for a week or two now, and it was going smoothly until I tried to play Deep Rock Galactic. I got an error that when I researched it, everyone said i had to update DirectX. I didn't have it installed, and researching it took me down a rabbithole of installing the Nvidia driver, Bumblebee (for Nvidia Optimus), and that whole dealio. I followed what the wiki said (obviously probably not correctly), but when I rebooted to reload the Nvidia configs, I got stuck.

This is not my first runabout with Linux, I am familiar with the black screen and blinking cursor (I ran into it a lot on Debian), this is not that. Sort of? If I reboot, it does not flash. I can change to tty2 and the rest of the system looks to work as expected. When I switch to tty1, it says

starting version 249.7-2-arch
/dev/nvme0n1p3: clean, 439182/30703616 files, 30040889/122798422 blocks

and then the flashing cursor

I have delved into the journal, but I comprehend little of what I read. I would post it here, but I'm not sure how to output the journal to a file i can then transfer to my Windows machine (what i am regrettably but thankfully on right now) to post here for you lovely folks to take a looksee at. When I figure that out I will update this, as I know without it there's likely a billion things it could be.

Thanks! I'll get back ASAP with that output

EDIT1: disabled lightdm. Now it boots directly into the

starting version 249.7-2-arch
/dev/nvme0n1p3: clean, 439182/30703616 files, 30040889/122798422 blocks

and then the flashing cursor

when i go to tty2 and back to tty1 it just gives me standard console login

EDIT2: found a most s u s p i c i o u s l i n e in the journal:

kernel: nvidia: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel.
kernel: nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
kernel: Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint.
kernel: nvidia: module verification failed: signature and/or required key missing - tainting kernel

gonna do a grep nvidia and see what else nvidia is getting down to in journalspace

EDIT3: nvidia isn't doing much. I decided to explore other issues. Currently seeing what adding a nomodeset kernel parameter or enabling some nvidia dark magic (as per this forum post https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=260917 ) will do for my situation.

EDIT4: I wonder if it has something to do with Xorg? just cuz i reinstalled lightdm and nvidia and everything. Maybe a config file is what's broken?
EDIT4.5: looking in /var/log/Xorg.0.log. Seeing a lot of "No input driver specified". Checking that out.

Last edited by bonobo_witha_bazooka (2021-12-22 03:15:18)

jonno2002 · 2021-12-21 06:58:48

what is your hardware ? what EXACTLY have you done? .... packages installed, configs changed/added etc etc....
that nvidia "error" is normal when using the proprietary driver

seth · 2021-12-21 07:50:01

I would post it here, but I'm not sure how to output the journal to a file i can then transfer to my Windows machine

See the first link below and post your xorg log and system journal as well as "lspci -k"

bonobo_witha_bazooka · 2021-12-21 21:27:08

Here is the full journal for the session:
http://ix.io/3J4q (let me know if I should post it in text too)

Xorg:
http://ix.io/3J4w

lspci:
http://ix.io/3J4y

again if I need to copy/paste the whole output to the forum just lmk, I've never used the forum nor ix.io, apologies.

thank you for your help by the way c:

that nvidia "error" is normal when using the proprietary driver

ah, that makes sense. I did also find this strange output in the Xorg log:

[     3.755] (II) NVIDIA(0):     may not be running or the "AcpidSocketPath" X
[     3.755] (II) NVIDIA(0):     configuration option may not be set correctly.  When the
[     3.755] (II) NVIDIA(0):     ACPI event daemon is available, the NVIDIA X driver will
[     3.755] (II) NVIDIA(0):     try to use it to receive ACPI event notifications.  For
[     3.755] (II) NVIDIA(0):     details, please see the "ConnectToAcpid" and
[     3.755] (II) NVIDIA(0):     "AcpidSocketPath" X configuration options in Appendix B: X
[     3.755] (II) NVIDIA(0):     Config Options in the README.

is that normal?

Last edited by bonobo_witha_bazooka (2021-12-21 21:32:30)

seth · 2021-12-21 21:36:50

It's an optimus system w/ /etc/X11/xorg.conf generated by nvidia-settings (what does not work) causing the server to run on the nvidia chip, but there're no outputs attached to it.
=> remove /etc/X11/xorg.conf
If there're remaining issues, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA_Optimus and decide how you want to use the system and paste an updated xorg log (ix.io is fine, no need to copy it over here)

Edit:
also remove

Dec 21 15:08:15 swallowtail kernel: Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=428578bf-29bd-4a4d-a0e8-2018007be5a5 rw quiet splash nomodeset loglevel=3 quiet

the nomodeset parameter.

Last edited by seth (2021-12-21 21:37:20)

bonobo_witha_bazooka · 2021-12-22 03:14:16

Mazel tov! that worked! I forgot to run the mkconfig on the grub after removing nomodeset and freaked out a touch when it wouldn't let me go into any tty, but i got it working.
for posterity's sake, I hit e in the grub menu and edited nomodeset out of it there, it let me log in just fine.

thank you so much for your help, genuinely. I'll read up on optimus and not halfass it this time haha.

Arch Linux

#1 2021-12-21 01:40:24

[SOLVED] black screen with solid white cursor - broke display manager?

#2 2021-12-21 06:58:48

Re: [SOLVED] black screen with solid white cursor - broke display manager?

#3 2021-12-21 07:50:01

Re: [SOLVED] black screen with solid white cursor - broke display manager?

#4 2021-12-21 21:27:08

Re: [SOLVED] black screen with solid white cursor - broke display manager?

#5 2021-12-21 21:36:50

Re: [SOLVED] black screen with solid white cursor - broke display manager?

#6 2021-12-22 03:14:16

Re: [SOLVED] black screen with solid white cursor - broke display manager?

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