Arch Linux

AMacaw

Member

Registered: 2025-06-20

Posts: 2

SDDM boots to black screen

Hello! SDDM boots to a black screen with a white dash on the top left of the screen after grub boots into arch. I have a NVIDIA card and I believe that to be the root cause. The journal dosn't have any errors related to SDDM and I cannot post it here as I cant get it out of my desktop without manually copying the thousands of lines there. Once I remove the nvidia-open package it boots into the black screen still but without the dash.

airbus777neo

Member

Registered: 2025-06-03

Posts: 35

Re: SDDM boots to black screen

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA#Early_loading

I'd assume this happens because, as stated here, the card's kernel drivers load after SDDM does, so you would have to make sure to early load the drivers/kernel modules

How to early load such depends on which initramfs generator you use.

See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Kernel … le_loading (which is linked within the initial early loading link provided)

Last edited by airbus777neo (2025-06-21 08:15:13)

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seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,277

Re: SDDM boots to black screen

The journal dosn't have any errors related to SDDM and I cannot post it here as I cant get it out of my desktop without manually copying the thousands of lines there.

sudo journalctl -b | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

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airbus777neo

Member

Registered: 2025-06-03

Posts: 35

Re: SDDM boots to black screen

On that note:

I was gonna mention such, until I went to test it myself, and when I run

sudo journalctl -b | curl -F "file=@" 0x0.st

nothing is output (I assumed it would give me a URL?)
Then with:

sudo journalctl -b | curl -F "file=@-" https://0x0.st

I get:

curl: (35) TLS connect error: error:0A0003E8:SSL routines::reason(1000)

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Just a computer fanatic finally beginning to etch out of his shell in experience
"The man who chases two rabbits catches none." — Confucius

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,277

Re: SDDM boots to black screen

curl -vL 0x0.st > /dev/null

And yes, you'll usually get a url in return - iff your journal is particularly large it might take a while and if it's more than 0.5GB, you'll get quota'd

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