Installing Nvidia Graphics drivers on Ubuntu-GNOME 16.04

Question

I am using Ubntu-GNOME 16.04 with GNOME 3.20

When I install Nvidia graphic drivers by sudo apt-get install nvidia-361 , I am facing the following problems.

During the installation of Nvidia-361, it asks me to select Default Display Manager with the following options

• lightdm
• gdm3

Consequences of selecting lightdm :

The login screen becomes like this :

I don't want this screen. I want the Default (nice) GNOME login screen.

Furthermore....

When I enter my password and press enter, I get this screen for about 5 seconds :

Consequences of selecting gdm3 :

Well I get nothing!

After rebooting, Ubuntu loads ... then all of a sudden my display turns of. No Light. I have waited enough but alas :( no change.

NOTE:

I have tried both nvidia-361 in default repositories and nvidia-361 from ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa. No difference.

I also tried installing nvidia-364 and nvidia-367 from graphics-drivers:ppa , alas :( no much difference.

Using nvidia-364 or nvidia-367 :

When I tried these drivers, I could get GUI back. But I got stuck on the login page : login loop

Solution

You most likely have hit this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-gnome/+bug/1559576 which renders Nvidia prime cards currently unusable. You can maybe try some workarounds provided in the comments, but these might not work. However please do share your findings!

Comments

[TheWanderer]

What about nvidia-364 from the graphics drivers PPA, or even 367?

[Severus Tux]

@Zacharee1 I have not tried them. thought they were beta

[Andrew Keech]

I have a maxwell nvidia card, and my display wouldn't work on 16.04 with anything older than 364 from the ppa (or nouveau, but the performance was awful).

[octoquad]

What Nvidia graphics card is it? Does your Nvidia card have prime support?

[Severus Tux]

@octoquad Nvidia G-force 820M . Yes it has prime support

[Severus Tux]

Yes. This is very much related. Thanks for the link :-)

[Enterprise]

This bug was updated with a work-around: sudo apt install --reinstall xserver-xorg-legacy. This seems to work for me; I am using 17.04 with nvidia-375, but the suggestion in the bug report is for 16.04.