Well, it's working, yet not quite...
I tried typing "e" on the Ubuntu Studio selection from the grub menu, and ended up with a file I could edit (yet hardly see what was on it, because of the background image I had set, some time back, for the grub menu), but could not find the "quiet splash" line to add the "nomodeset" to.
I then tried to have it go fully into the blank screen, and try CTRL-ALT-F1, to go to terminal mode, but it wouldn't work (something that's been bugging me for a while... some keyboard shortcuts don't do what they're supposed to do...)
TazManiac wrote:https://askubuntu.com/questions/901326/ ... eb-browser
[lake_wrangler's note: I don't know why Tazmaniac's link never showed up as a link... I had to include it into a URL tag, using itself as the URL link...]
Q) How do I boot into a Recovery mode, fail-safeX, graphics session
for troubleshooting graphics drivers with a desktop & mouse ?
That way I can use a web browser & nice GUI tools to fix regular video drivers. (Nvidia, AMD,...
The thread is an older one but it's pretty simple for all that, and lets you get into the GUI part of the OS, a good diagnostic step & if it works well enough, a way to avoid the command line/terminal window as the only option to resolving problems.
The instructions here failed me some, in that my computer did not boot into a graphics failsafe mode. But I did use it to try to enable network on terminal mode and then go back to other instructions for the rest. It didn't quite work... more below.
While in terminal mode, I did manage to completely remove the Nvidia drivers, but not quite how they did it (I forget why, now). I ended up doing:
But when I tried following the other instructions, it could not find the repositories (i.e. no network, even though I had tried to enable network in the advanced options). Still, I figured, why not, let's try booting up.
Lo and behold, I have a functioning screen again! But...
While using the Nouveau drivers (which I guess it defaulted to, in the absence of Nvidia drivers), I could not get the proper monitor configuration working: while it did see that I had two graphics adapters and three monitors, it would only allow me to enable the second monitor, not the third. I tried both under the Display menu, and ARandR (which gave me an error each time I tried.) That's somewhat perplexing, since I first installed Ubuntu Studio 14.04 because it was the first distro I tried whose LiveCD would allow me the use of the three monitors (even with the Nouveau drivers...) I had tried two other distros first, and neither would allow me to enable the second graphics adapter to use the third monitor. I suppose I could have fully installed them, then looked for a solution (which would, most likely, have involved installing the Nvidia drivers), but I wanted something to work out of the box, and at the time, Ubuntu Studio 14.04 seemed to do so (it was only later on, that the skipping mouse was bugging me enough to go and install the Nvidia drivers)
A funny annecdote: I had a strange situation, at one point... It was weird: I had the left and right monitors working, but not the center one. And whatever monitor the mouse happened to be on, it would not move to the other monitor! It's like it was trapped to whatever monitor it was on, because of the non-functioning center monitor... It's a good thing I had my previous setup with panels on the bottom of all my monitors, with a button to access the menu, otherwise, I might not have been able to go back to the Display Settings to try to fix things.
Using the Nouveau drivers once more, I could see the mouse skipping again, if I tried to move it too quickly... It was time for the next step.
So while in full Linux mode, I went and opened a terminal window and reinstalled the Nvidia drivers:
I then rebooted. It worked: smooth mouse sailing, the Nvidia Settings program again, etc. Yay!
Now, since the regular Display settings still won't let me enable three screens, nor will ARandR, I go into the Nvidia Settings program, and am able to enable all three, after a while... But...
I still can't manage to get them to show up in the right order, or to have the proper monitor be the primary display... It is keeping the right monitor as the primary, and if I move the mouse from one screen to the next, it goes from right to left to center. I don't want to try switching video cables between monitors, because I am not sure the HDMI cable I am using for the center monitor will reach all the way to the right monitor. Yes, I suppose I could buy a longer one, but I don't want to. I could also play around with the three cables at the computer end, switching them around until I find a configuration that works (though that would most likely mess up my Windows display configuration, and I'd have to work on that again...), but I shouldn't have to. I should be able to fix this via software. It was working in 14.04, there's no reason it shouldn't work in 16.04. Yet currently, I can't seem to even find an option in the Nvidia Settings program to select any other monitor as the default one. I even tried to go into the Display Settings from Ubuntu, and it won't even load up! I have to use the Nvidia one.
I have no more time for this for now, will look into it tonight, most likely. But at least, it's progress. The OS is clearly Ubuntu Studio 16.04 (now suggesting I upgrade to 18.04...) and I have most of my settings still in place, such as all the panels I had on the various screens. It will take a while, to see if all is as I had left it before, but I'm happy with the forward motion...
All this to say that yes, upgrading Ubuntu Studio rather than doing a full install from scratch does work, but if you have been using proprietary video drivers, you may have some fiddling to do before you get them working again.
I did save my previous configuration in a file, back when I first set up my monitors with the Nvidia drivers in Ubuntu 14.04. I will try to see if I can find where the current config file is, and try replacing it with the old one, to see if that helps. If not, I'll keep looking around for the option to switch primary display and the proper order of the monitors, in the software. Failing that, I may just have to bite the bullet, and play around with the cable connections at the computer end, until I find a configuration that works properly, then redo the configuration in Windows.
Another thing that will benefit me, having done all this, is that while I was in the Grub menu, I did notice the options for testing memory... I will be able to try that, later on, to check what's happening with my memory sticks (some of which I suspect may be causing problems, but that's something for another thread...)
As a side note, I have looked at many YouTube videos on the topic of Linux, in the past, including some conferences and such, some of which featured Linux Torvald, the creator of Linux. In one such video, he said that Nvidia was the hardest video adapter company to work with for Linux drivers, and ended by saying "F*ck you, Nvidia!"