[Fixed] Black screen after swapping video card

Technical Issues
1

I just inherited a nvidia video card slightly better than my current. As I don’t use proprietary drivers I did just that: replaced old with newer. Years ago I did the same without a hitch on the Linux side but not this time.

I get to the login part (LightDM) just fine but after you type the password the screen goes totally black; no mouse, cursor blinking, nothing. The alternate sessions Ctrl-Alt-Fx work just fine too.

With no much time in my hands lately and after reading for a while, just downloaded the latest Mabox ISO and nuked my root partition with a fresh install and full updates. All good but, again, it goes black after login. :expressionless:

This means there is a config in my personal files responsible but still couldn’t find it. Any advice please?

2

No idea. Don’t the logs give any hint?

Edit:
Also check if user ID (UID) is the same as it was on old system (third field of /etc/passwd).

3

Not sure what logs to read in this case. It is obvious that the GUI is there and working after login, just not visible. It used to be DVI, now HDMI but, again, LightDM has no problems. :thinking:

The user ID I’m sure is the same as before.

4

I would also check ~/.config/openbox/autostart. It is sometimes used to run some xrandr command. Maybe you added something like that and forgot :wink:

Also check /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Personally, I would probably create a new user and just manually copy some important files from the old home directory one by one

5

Well, the problem kind of fixed itself.

The old card was using the DVI port as input and the new one has a HDMI port instead. As I need to keep separate my monitor’s cables as before, I bought a VGA to HDMI adapter and voila, all good again.

Closing thoughts:

  • The card swapping was transparent in the Manjaro distro I keep as fallback with, also, open source drivers.
  • @napcok’s solution (create a new profile, transfer relevant configs, etc) is the way to go if you ever find yourself it this situation and, like my case, unable to figure out the config file.