Enabling Nvidia driver messes up splash screen

Question

When you boot from live CD, or doing the first boot after installing Ubuntu, splash screen looks awesome. But as soon as you enable nvidia-current driver, installed with apt-get, splash screen goes all crazy.

With crazy I mean that resolution is very low, font(I assume) is very weird and it all looks like it's been broken.

This happened with 10.04 and now again with 10.10.

How do I fix splash screen after enabling nvidia drivers?

Answer 1

That is easy. First of all:

sudo apt-get install v86d hwinfo
sudo hwinfo --framebuffer

This will show you your supported resolutions. Take note.

Then:

gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Search for - GRUB_GFXMODE=

below this you need to type: GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=1024x768 <- your-resolution-here

Save the file and then:

echo FRAMEBUFFER=y | sudo tee /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash
sudo update-grub2
sudo update-initramfs -u

Answer 2

The above solution might not work for you. In my case e.g. hwinfo doesn't show the supported resolutions. You can, however, get this information directly from grub.

Press c to get in the grub console and then enter vbeinfo to get the supported resolutions. If you native resolution is supported, use it. And use it directly as shown (i.e. 1680x1050x32, so include the colordepth). Get back by pressing ESC.

When you have the supported resolution edit /etc/default/grub and edit part of the file to look like this:

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=1680x1050x32

Now run the following lines to make the splash show earlier and to actually commit the changes to grub.

echo "FRAMEBUFFER=y" | sudo tee -a /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash
sudo update-initramfs -u -k all
sudo update-grub

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Here is a easy script to fix this: http://www.webupd8.org/2010/10/script-to-fix-ubuntu-plymouth-for.html

I don't know if this will change your alt+F2 problem as well

I think the problem is, that Nvidia GPUs need proprietary drivers that can't be built into the kernel, so they are loaded at a very late boot stage. So if I remember correctly, this script makes your computer load a generic vesa driver to show the splash screen. This actually makes your computer take longer to start (but I don't know if we're talking about seconds or milliseconds).

I personally wouldn't bother changing core parts of my system for an eyecandy, but as long as it works, it shure is nice.