Ubuntu won't boot; How do I uninstall the nvidia display driver?

Question

I had Ubuntu 3.0.23 and installed manually the nVidia drivers 2 months ago. Now took the accumulated updates 3.0.26 and can't boot anymore. After the GRUB menu I get a black screen and a cursor. Is there a way to get into the system and remove the nVidia driver?. I have tried booting with both kernels and also the recovery mode but doesn't work.

Solution 1

How do I boot into single user mode from GRUB?

1. Select (highlight) the GRUB boot menu entry you wish to use.

2. Press e to edit the GRUB boot commands for the selected boot menu entry.

3. Look near the bottom of the list of commands for lines similar to

   linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-24-generic root=UUID=bc6f8146-1523-46a6-8b6a-64b819ccf2b7 ro quiet splash
   initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-24-generic
   

4. Change the middle line in (3) by adding the kernel boot parameter single to the end of the line (i.e. after ro quiet splash). For this example you would change

   6a-64b819ccf2b7 ro quiet splash  
   

   to

   6a-64b819ccf2b7 ro quiet splash single
   

5. Press either Ctrl+X or F10 to boot using these kernel options.

Solution 2

Following the details on this page I gained access to the broken Ubuntu installation and executing the following fixed the issue. After that I took out the LiveCD and rebooted and then I could login normally. I finally reinstalled the latest nVidia driver.

mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.nvidia

Comments

[Admin]

Is there another OS you can boot using the driver/device (is it onboard or discrete)?

[Admin]

no, I have one drive dedicated to Ubuntu ... can't boot with none of the available kernels. Is there a command in grub I can run to login in "safe-mode" or anything alike?

[Admin]

Thanks! I tried this and doesn't work. I still get the same black screen and cursor.

[nabulator]

looks like the link is broken> :( What a shame