How to set nomodeset for installation?

Question

I know that editing the boot options line and adding 'nomodeset' solves my laptops problem during LiveCD mode, what I don't know is how to set it at boot up through Grub2 after I've installed Ubuntu.

So, my question is, how do I set nomodeset before I boot into Ubuntu?

Answer 1

To edit Grub2 during the boot process try the following:

1. Immediately after the BIOS splash screen during boot, press and hold the SHIFT button. This will display you grub containing a list of kernels and recovery options

   

2. Press e to edit the first kernel displayed

   

3. Find the line ending with quiet splash. Add your boot option before these key words - i.e. so the line looks like [...]nomodeset quiet splash
4. Press CTRL + X to boot

Follow the steps in Coldfish's answer on how to fix the nomodeset boot option permanently so that you don't have to go through this manual procedure again.

Answer 2

You should add this option to /etc/default/grub, firstly:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

and then add nomodeset to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT:

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

And then simply run:

sudo update-grub