[SOLVED] Desktop bricked/glitched on fresh install?

[Wobbelblob]

Hey, so I wanted to try Kubuntu, but I ran into the following problem: Already on starting from my USB stick, I was greeted with the fact that on the mainscreen, only the bottom 10% where shown. That was fixed after I got into the safe boot option to install it, which was fine. But after installing and booting it, same thing happens. From the main screen, only the bottom ~10% with the task bar are visible. The mouse is not visible if I got into the black area, but everything apparently works. Second screen is fine. Considering that the safe boot fixed it during installing, I assume it is a problem with my Nvidia-card? Any advises on how to fix that?

Kubuntu version: Kubuntu 25.10 Plasma 6, current download from Kubuntu.org
Graphics: Nvidia 2080TI
Other OS? Yes, I have an installation of Bazzite OS, Zorin OS and Windows. Zorin mostly because I am too lazy to delete it.

Anything else needed?

[die.boer]

Hey, so I wanted to try Kubuntu, but I ran into the following problem: Already on starting from my USB stick, I was greeted with the fact that on the mainscreen, only the bottom 10% where shown. That was fixed after I got into the safe boot option to install it, which was fine. But after installing and booting it, same thing happens. From the main screen, only the bottom ~10% with the task bar are visible. The mouse is not visible if I got into the black area, but everything apparently works. Second screen is fine. Considering that the safe boot fixed it during installing, I assume it is a problem with my Nvidia-card? Any advises on how to fix that?

Kubuntu version: Kubuntu 25.10 Plasma 6, current download from Kubuntu.org
Graphics: Nvidia 2080TI
Other OS? Yes, I have an installation of Bazzite OS, Zorin OS and Windows. Zorin mostly because I am too lazy to delete it.

Anything else needed?

at the grub menu choose advanced options and boot into recovery mode , once inside run

sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall 

and reboot

[Wobbelblob]

That command always threw an error about the command not existing. But when I add an "install" between drivers and autoinstall, I get the info that all drivers are installed. Desktop is still broken though. Sidenote: I don't get the option to boot to Kubuntu from the GRUB menu, I always need to go into BIOS to directly boot that drive, which prompts a slightly differently looking GRUB menu, which replaces the Bazzite boot option with Kubuntu. Do both OS conflict with each other, even though they are installed on different drives?

[oshunluvr]

That command always threw an error about the command not existing. But when I add an "install" between drivers and autoinstall, I get the info that all drivers are installed. Desktop is still broken though. Sidenote: I don't get the option to boot to Kubuntu from the GRUB menu, I always need to go into BIOS to directly boot that drive, which prompts a slightly differently looking GRUB menu, which replaces the Bazzite boot option with Kubuntu. Do both OS conflict with each other, even though they are installed on different drives?

If you install GRUB (or whatever boot loader) on different drives, then you should be good. Sounds like you might need to update the both GRUB installs. If you enable OS-PROBER on Kubuntu, it should find Bazzite and let you boot to Bazzite from the Kubuntu GRUB.

IDK anything about Bazzite or what it uses to boot. It's also possible it's an EFI related error, which I'm not very familiar with.

[Wobbelblob]

Okay, I admit, you lost me here. I think I installed GRUB on different drives? All my OS are installed on different drives, so GRUB should be as well?

[die.boer]

please post output of these 2 commands:

lsmod | grep nvidia

nvidia-smi

also have you tried X11 rather than Wayland ?

[oshunluvr]

Okay, I admit, you lost me here. I think I installed GRUB on different drives? All my OS are installed on different drives, so GRUB should be as well?

Not necessarily, but why not? If you have GRUB only on one drive and it fails - no bootable devices. If GRUB is on more than one drive, you can boot to another one and still have your PC. Another case where it matters, is if GRUB is only installed on one drive that also means it's tied to a specific install. If you decide to remove or replace that install, you cannot boot.

I recommend at least two drives be bootable and two different OS's are controlling the grub installs. Then you set up EACH grub install to be able to boot ALL the installs and drives.

[Wobbelblob]

also have you tried X11 rather than Wayland ?

I interestingly cannot do that. The option that contains it offers only Plasma/Wayland as an option.

please post output of these 2 commands:

First command:

i2c_nvidia_gpu 16384 0
i2c_ccgx_ucsi 12288 1 i2c_nvidia_gpu

Second Command:

NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA
driver is installed and running.

Which would mean my initial assumption is correct that the Nvidia driver is funky?

Then you set up EACH grub install to be able to boot ALL the installs and drives.

Well, that is completely new terrirtory for me as I did not set up anything with GRUB, it just worked. Was that a fluke and the problem with the GRUB stuff is because I have 2 different GRUBS installed that do not recognize each other? Because in both, everything is there but the Bazzite/Kubuntu one.

[jlittle]

also have you tried X11 rather than Wayland ?

I interestingly cannot do that. The option that contains it offers only Plasma/Wayland as an option.

Have you run

sudo apt-get install  plasma-session-x11

I had to do that after release upgrading my desktop to 25.10. Aggravating at the time.

[Wobbelblob]

Tried it, but it throws an error. The bigger problem: Now something really broke. Today, when I started Kubuntu, I got some sort of MCT error (repeated three times, could not get a picture as fast) and suddenly, it only supports a 1024x700 resolution. Quick googling told me that that error has (usually) something to do with driver corruptions. Any idea what caused that and how to fix it?

After googling, I found this article: https://medium.com/@thakuravnish2313...o-617e353c8498 Does that look like something that works or is it bull****/not applicable? Sorry for all the dumb questions, because this is the first time I actually ran into a big problem with anything Linux related.

[Snowhog]

Tried it, but it throws an error.

What is the "it" you tried? The installation of plasma-session-x11 or something else? Installing the package should present no errors at all unless you made a typo in the command.

[Wobbelblob]

Yes, the plasma command. Interestingly, after restarting, it worked.

But, I have a better message, which will leave here for Google: I got everything (mostly, aside from the GRUB thing) to work. For whatever reason, the driver manager was now interactable (which previously only opened in the dark void). Setting the driver there to the current version and restarting everything fixed it.

And regarding the GRUB thing: I seem to have two different GRUB's, Kubuntu uses the 2.14~something version, Bazzite the 2.12 version. And somehow they don't recognize each other. Any solution or would it make more sense to make a new thread somewhere else as this is a different problem?

[Snowhog]

Any solution or would it make more sense to make a new thread somewhere else as this is a different problem?

Start a new Thread.