Summary
Either because an upgrade wrecked a working Linux install, or because the default drivers aren't performing very well, it may be necessary to install NVIDIA drivers for very old, "legacy" hardware on Ubuntu, or a similar Linux distribution. This post is meant to help get that done without burning as much time searching for the right information and putting all the pieces together.
Symptoms
- After an update / upgrade, Linux stalls mid-boot with a black screen and a blinking text cursor in the upper left corner.
- Linux installed on a machine with older / legacy NVIDIA hardware is running too slow to be usable, and the graphics driver is suspected as the cause.
Elements of the Problem
- Recent versions of Ubuntu install a kernel version that is no longer compatible with older NVIDIA drivers.
- The default, generic driver doesn't perform very well (or at all) with older NVIDIA graphics card hardware.
Getting to a Terminal
When/if the X-Window / GUI Startup failed and stopped the bootup, it may be necessary to switch to another tty/terminal. There are typically several of them started with Linux, and they can be accessed using CTRL+ALT+F2 (or F3, F4, ...). From the blank / black screen with the blinking cursor, use that key combo to switch over and directly log-in to a terminal / tty, where the commands below can be executed.
Diagnostic Steps
- Verify old NVIDIA hardware
- Command: sudo lspci | grep VGA
- Should display information about the NVIDIA hardware (e.g. GeForce 9600M GT)
- Verify old, no longer working, NVIDIA driver version is installed - (e.g. 340.108)
- Command: dkms status
- Command: apt list --installed | grep nvidia
- Should show the NVIDIA driver package version (e.g. nvidia-340 ... 340.108)
- Verify NVIDIA driver is malfunctioning
- Command: nvidia-smi
- Should report a failure to communicate with graphics hardware.
- Check NVIDIA settings
- Command: nvidia-settings
- May report config errors, etc. and/or other useful info.
Elements of the Solution
- Add the PPA repository from user kelebek333 which contains a version of the NVIDIA drivers that has been patched to work with newer kernel versions.
- See: https://launchpad.net/~kelebek333/+archive/ubuntu/nvidia-legacy
- Command: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kelebek333/nvidia-legacy
- Run command: sudo apt-get update
- This should report that one or more packages (which include patched NVIDIA driver) are upgradable.
- Verify w/ command: apt list --upgradable
- Run command: sudo apt upgrade nvidia-340
- This may report that there is a public key missing. If so, run the following command replacing {key-value} with the key that is reported in the error message from apt upgrade...
- Command: sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys {key-value}
- Reboot - If this resolved the NVIDIA driver issues, the X Window system should start normally again.
