I've been struggling with my Arch Linux installation lately. After going through GRUB and booting into Linux, the GUI just won't load. I end up with a static text cursor, but I can switch to other TTYs and log in there. The weird thing is I didn't change anything since it was working perfectly yesterday, but I've had this issue before, and last time I ended up reinstalling because I thought I broke something. It seems like this could be an NVIDIA-related problem, but I'm not sure.
3 Answers
If you've got an NVIDIA card and didn't install the drivers with DKMS, then a kernel update will require you to reinstall those drivers. You can do everything from a TTY. If you want to get your desktop running again, try adding 'nomodeset' to your kernel boot parameters in GRUB. This lets you boot without the NVIDIA drivers loaded for now.
Do you see any error messages at startup? Try disabling quiet mode and splash; it might give you more insight.
Did you make it to TTY? Were you able to log in?
No, I tried using the nomodeset parameter, but it made my screen completely black. I can still access TTY, but that's about it. I'm trying to install the NVIDIA driver from TTY, although I'm unsure how to do it, especially since I had network issues after connecting to Wi-Fi.
I checked, and everything looks fine otherwise. No error messages showing up.