Ubuntu
nvidia-graphics-drivers-340 package

  1. Bug #1516216
  2. Comment #20

Comment 20 for bug 1516216

Revision history for this message
Graham Inggs (ginggs) wrote : Re: X fails to start, starting with kernel version 3.13.0-66 including 3.13.0-68

I am seeing the same 'unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference' in comment #19 after running 'apt-get dist-upgrade' and not being online for several months.

Ubuntu 14.04, nvidia 340.96-0ubuntu0.14.04.1, kernels 3.13.0-49 and 3.13.0-74.
Intel motherboard with on-board graphics and Nvidia GTX 465 card.

After booting up once with 3.13.0.-74 normally, every time thereafter it briefly flashed the kernel Oops message and then switched to a black screen. I was later able to recover the full message from /var/log/kern.log.

Booting up with the 3.13.0-49 kernel gives me a low resolution X login screen, but a few seconds after logging in, the login screen appears again. The same as in comment #18.

A work-around is to boot up with the older kernel and then press Ctrl-Alt-F1 to switch to tty1, log in, and then 'sudo apt-get install --reinstall nvidia-340', or nvidia-352, etc. as desired.