Arch Linux

mrdandelion

Member

Registered: 2025-05-04

Posts: 1

NVIDIA +Wayland + Plasma KDE Black Screen

hello this is my first post on arch forums. i followed the arch wiki for Arch Wiki NVIDIA guide , went through similar posts on arch forums and reddit, followed all the suggested steps , and i still get a black screen with a flashing cursor at the top left after booting.

SYSTEM INFO:
- gpu: 1080ti
- using plasma KDE
- using wayland display server
- have a secondary built in on motherboard amd gpu

here is the result of lscpi | grep VGA

[root@archiso /]# lspci | grep VGA
10:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP102 [GeForce GTX 1080 Ti] (rev a1)
30:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Cezanne [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile Series] (rev c9)
[root@archiso /]# _

STEPS I'VE TAKEN:
i have mounted into arch system using an arch installation iso on USB:

mount /dev/sdaX /mnt
mount /dev/sdaY /mnt/boot/efi
arch-chroot /mnt

and have done the following:
1. pacman -Syu
2. install proper nvidia drivers and cuda: `pacman -Syu nvidia nvidia-utils nvidia-settings nvidia-dkms cuda`
3. ensure wayland is properly installed: `pacman -Syu egl-wayland plasma-workspace`
4. set kernel module options by `vim /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf` and added:

options nvidia-drm modeset=1
options nvidia-drm fbdev=1
blacklist nouveau

5.  set initramfs stuff by `vim /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf` and have:

MODULES=(nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm)
...
HOOKS=(base udev autodetect microcode modconf keyboard keymap consolefont block filesystems fsck)

note that i removed kms from HOOKS

6. set kernel boot parameters by `vim /etc/default/grub` and have:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3 quiet splash nvidia-drm.modeset=1 nvidia-drm.fbdev=1"

7. regenerate initramfs and grub:

mkinitcpio -P
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

8. set environment variables by `vim /etc/environment` and have:

QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=wayland;xcb"

GBM_BACKEND=nvidia-drm
__GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia
ENABLE_VKBASALT=1
LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia

9. configure sddm to use wayland by `vim /etc/sddm.conf.d/display.conf` and have:

[General]
DisplayServer=wayland

10. exit chroot and reboot then take USB out. it enters grub menu and i select arch then it loads with all OK then just goes to a black screen with flashing cursor at top left.

ADDITIONAL INFO

lsmod returns nothing for nvidia:

lsmod | grep nvidia

some results of investigating with journalctl:

$ journalctl -b -p 3 --no-pager | grep nvidia
May 04 18:09:33 potato systemd-modules-load[385]: Failed to find module 'nvidia-uvm'

$ journalctl -b -p 3 --no-pager | grep nouveau
May 04 18:09:35 potato kernel: nouveau 0000:10:00.0: drm: DDC responded, but no EDID for HDMI-A-1
May 04 18:09:35 potato kernel: nouveau 0000:10:00.0: drm: DDC responded, but no EDID for HDMI-A-1
May 04 18:09:37 potato kernel: nouveau 0000:10:00.0: drm: DDC responded, but no EDID for HDMI-A-1

checking nvidia with pacman:

[root@archiso /]# pacman -Qs nvidia
local/cuda 12.8.1-3
    NVIDIA's GPU programming toolkit
local/egl-gbm 1.1.2.1-1
    The GBM EGL external platform library
local/egl-wayland 4:1.1.13-1
    EGLStream-based Wayland external platform
local/egl-x11 1.0.1-1
    NVIDIA XLib and XCB EGL Platform Library
local/lib32-nvidia-utils 570.144-1
    NVIDIA drivers utilities (32-bit)
local/libvdpau 1.5-3
    Nvidia VDPAU library
local/libxnvctrl 570.144-1
    NVIDIA NV-CONTROL X extension
local/nvidia 570.144-3
    NVIDIA kernel modules
local/nvidia-settings 570.144-1
    Tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
local/nvidia-utils 570.144-3
    NVIDIA drivers utilities
local/opencl-nvidia 570.144-3
    OpenCL implementation for NVIDIA

checking nvidia with modprobe:

[root@archiso /]# modprobe nvidia
modprobe: FATAL: Module nvidia not found in directory /lib/modules/6.12.7-arch1-1

and here is my linux version:

[root@archiso /]# uname -r
6.12.7-arch1-1

[root@archiso /]# pacman -Qs linux | grep arch
local/archlinux-appstream-data 20250317-1
local/archlinux-keyring 20250430.1-1
local/linux 6.14.4.arch1-2
local/linux-headers 6.14.4.arch1-2
[root@archiso /]#

bebop10

Member

Registered: 2026-02-27

Posts: 1

Re: NVIDIA +Wayland + Plasma KDE Black Screen

Hi were you able to find a solution to your problem because I am running into the same issue. I'm currently going through the forums to see if I can find a solution.

WorMzy

Administrator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 13,331

Website

Re: NVIDIA +Wayland + Plasma KDE Black Screen

OP hasn't been on the forums since posting this. Please open your own thread.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Genera … bumping%22

Closing.

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