After installing the package with version 340.107, the system won't start

[Matheus Reich]

On Ubuntu 18.10, after installing the 340.107 driver, the system hangs with the last line showing [OK] Started GNOME Display Manager. I'm not able to change to another TTY, the system is completely locked. After forced restart, entered recovery mode, with root terminal, and removed the driver, and then the systems starts using the Nouveau drivers.
The GPU is a nVidia GeForce 9500GT.

[Matheus Reich (matheusr98)]

I've attached the boot log, so that it is easier to determine what the problem is.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Dominik (dominalien)]

I don't have the same final message (as I now booted the last one I got was "Started Detect the available GPUs and deal with any system changes."), but the result is the same. The system tries to start the graphical environment and usually fails (maybe one boot in 30 succeeds on the first try).

Workaround:

1. Press e on the GRUB screen to edit the Ubuntu entry and put a # before the gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode line. This will allow you to change TTYs after the system finishes booting.
2. Once you're stuck on the screen of kernel messages, change the TTY to 2 and back to 1. The system will try and sometimes even succeed to start the graphical environment again. If it doesn't (I'm then stuck on a blinking cursor in the upper left corner of the screen) switch to TTY 2 and back to 1 again. I've never had to do that more than 3 times.
3. There is no step three.

I'm on a Macbook Pro 6,2 with an Nvidia 330M. Luckily suspend/resume is pretty reliable so I don't turn off the computer at all since getting Ubuntu 18.10. It was all good on 18.04.

[Dominik (dominalien)]

I know 18.10 is already unsupported, but I guess it applies to later versions as well.

The solution to this is to make gdm use Xorg instead of Wayland.

In file /etc/gdm3/custom.conf uncomment the line

WaylandEnable=false