Black screen with cursor on install Solus-Budgie-Release-2026-04-18

yves2

I am trying to install Solus-Budgie-Release-2026-04-18 on my desktop but i only get a black screen with normal install or witth nvidia option

intel core i7-8700@ 3.2ghz

nvidia geforce gtx 1050 / pcie / sse2

yves2

I can start - Mxlinux 25.2

xubuntu 26.04
cachyos
the media works on my laptop where is the problem ??

tflovik

If you have secure boot enabled in BIOS then you should turn it off. Some distros work with this setting on, but i don't think Solus does.

yves2

i don’t have secure boot enabled

i only get a black screen with a mouse moving on it

Phiqu

yves2

Would say it's nVidia related thingy of the old 10xx cards. Had the same with my 1070 as I revisited Solus Budgie with 4.9 (Live USB). Just a black screen but mouse cursor was visible and it was an empty ssd. The ISO needs to be updated with the current drivers.

EDIT

Did some tests with an usb stick and the budgie isos:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K (8) @ 4.30 GHz

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 [Discrete]

Mainboard: Z170-HD3P

Solus-Budgie-Release-2026-04-18.iso

Normal: blackscreen + mousecursor ❌

nVidia compatibility mode: blackscreen ❌

Solus-Budgie-Release-2025-11-29.iso

Normal: blackscreen + mouse cursor ❌

nVidia compatibility mode: blackscreen ❌

Solus-Budgie-Release-2025-01-26.iso

Normal: blackscreen + mouse cursor ❌

nVidia compatibility mode: Desktop shows up ✅

brent

how many distros do you have on the SSD?

did you make a partition for the solus distro or did you install "alongside of"

did you format partition GPT? did you make 2 GB /boot partition in fat?

did you look this over before install: https://help.getsol.us/docs/user/quick-start/installation/?

I don't understand "I am trying to install" -- the iso doesn't load? or the installed os doesn't load?

could very well be nvidia

not a lot of info here

asianbullet

@yves2

I'm a bit confused, in your 1st post you state you have a desktop, but in your second post you state laptop?? I'm assuming you also mean booting from the Solus Budgie ISO in a live usb scenario?

My system is an Intel i7 6700k & Nvidia GTX 980 as a desktop PC. I have Budgie running for a few years now & I've tried the latest Solus Budgie ISO just to test & have the same issue as you

If you want to to try Solus Budgie, my workaround that I have tested and worked is the following;

Caution: No idea if this will work on a laptop setup as I don't have one to test on

Boot into your motherboard BIOS and select your primary display to IGFX instead of going to Nvidia GFX (dependant on your motherboard sometimes called PEG or PCI-E). Save & shutdown
Physically swap the HDMI/DP cable from the Nvidia GFX card to the motherboard HDMI/DP port on your motherboard (assuming it has one)
Turn on PC & load the Solus Budgie ISO from whatever media you have it on as normal

If you want to install I would suggest;

Caution: I have not tested it out but this is what I would do

Install Solus Budgie from the live Solus Budgie onto your target drive (recommend clean install with no existing partitions on your target drive)
Boot into the installed Solus Budgie OS & update
Reboot to ensure no issues with the updates, then install the Nvidia drivers (make sure you have installed the correct ones)
The ones I have are; nvidia-glx-driver-32bit nvidia-glx-driver-common nvidia-glx-driver-current nvidia-glx-driver-modaliases
Reboot back into your motherboard BIOS and select back your primary display to its previous setting to load from your Nvidia GFX card. Save & shutdown
Physically swap back the HDMI/DP cable from the motherboard HDMI/DP port to the Nvidia GFX card
If all went well you should now be able to boot into Solus Budgie with the Nvidia GFX using the previously installed drivers

Unfortunately this is currently how it is, I'm sure the Solus/Budgie teams are aware. I have tested Solus KDE DE lSO & it works as intended from a live ISO. So it might be a Budgie DE & pre-RTX Nividia driver issue??

Hope this helps

yves2

asianbullet

thanks for your reply you are right i was meaning " booting from the Solus Budgie ISO in a live usb scenario"

on my desktop Intel i7 8700, gigabyte z370, nvidia gtx 1050

i was talking of my laptop (Dell i3) because i can boot Solus Buggie on it with the same usb stick

i was thinking about unplugging my graphic card to try

your solution is much better i will try it in a few days

thanks

yves2

asianbullet

so i was able to boot to with primary display IGFX

but i intalled the nvidia driver (580.159.03) with Discover

it was very long and back to primary display PCIe

i only got a black screen

on a second attempt with a display on IGFX and one on nvidia

i had a message on nvidia : «failed to start lightdm»

i made a usb stick with Solus xfce and was able to boot and install without any problem

Phiqu

yves2

Or you just use the Budgie ISO 2025.01.26 with nVidia compatibility mode, install Budgie and do some updates. This was the one which worked for me as you can see in my previous post. We have nearly the same hardware.

yves2

Phiqu

I was sceptical about your solution until i realise that Solus is a rolling release

i will try it later for the moment i try Solus xfce

thanks

yves2

with xfce the intall run well

but after installing nvidia driver with discover i got a black screen with:

"Failed to start lightdm.service - light displau manager. "

so i use

and then install the packages ( sudo eopkg it xxxx)

nvidia-glx-driver-32bit nvidia-glx-driver-common nvidia-glx-driver-current nvidia-glx-driver-modaliases

reboot

and youpie !!!

yves2

the nvidia-glx-driver-32bit is not installed when using discover

the strange thing is that i cannot boot Solus-Budgie-2026-04-18.iso

                               but i can on Solus-xfce-2026-04-18.iso

penny-farthing

yves2

Just a question: did you activated the add-on 32bit libraries for NVIDIA Binary Driver when you installed NVIDIA Graphics Driver in Discover?

Phiqu

yves2

Xfce is for potato computers; Budgie isn't. The whole nVidia driver mess started for Solus in november. And was fixed after the release of 4.9. So 4.9 (live usb) is/can still be some sort of a problem if you have a (10xx) nVidia Card.

So the important drivers are.

nvidia-glx-driver-32bit

nvidia-glx-driver-common

nvidia-glx-driver-current

And about Discover. Try Solseek from the repo. It is so much better than Discover and the Gnome Store thing.

yves2

penny-farthing

no I have not seen this option

i just look at the name of the driver 580.159.03

the same used on other distribution

there is nothing in the description about the need of complementary module

penny-farthing

yves2

You could find the information by consulting the Solus Help Center:
https://help.getsol.us/docs/user/hardware/nvidia-gpu-drivers

elfprince

Phiqu Xfce is for potato computers

Really? 😆

Phiqu

elfprince

Yes, but that isn't bad right? I like Xfce and Budgie too.

asianbullet

@yves2 Oh boy you've certainly been on a journey!

I fished out a spare SSD & thought I'd have a go on installing Budgie 4.9 on my Intel i7 6700k & Nvidia GTX 980 system from what I set out before & from reading all the posts afterwards. This is an addendum from my previous post, here's how I got it to work;

Installed Budgie 4.9 from the live Solus Budgie to my target drive
Boot into the installed Solus Budgie & update via terminal sudo eopkg ur & sudo eopkg up
Reboot to ensure no issues logging in with the updates, installed Solseek & used it to install the Nvidia proprietary drivers
Rebooted back into motherboard BIOS & selected back my primary display to its previous setting to load from my Nvidia GFX card. Save & shutdown
Physically swap back the HDMI/DP cable from the motherboard HDMI/DP port to the Nvidia GFX card
Rebooted & it went to black screen!!! - No problem went into TTY via CTRL+ALT+F3 & ran sudo usysconf run -f to force all triggers & rebooted
Voilà! Logged into Budgie 4.9 updated & installed with Nvidia proprietary drivers all good & working on a Intel i7 6700k & Nvidia GTX 980 system

Post Notes

Wasn't sure about Discover for installing drivers since the consensus seems to be its not great at it. I'll trust the community on this hence installed Nvidia drivers via Solseek

The nvidia-glx-driver-32bit I suppose is optional as a fallback for any applications that requires it (mainly for gaming by the looks of it) so I didn't intall it this time round as it was a test. And nvidia-glx-driver-modaliases seems to be for the software center (Discover/Gnome) detection

The installed Nvidia driver packages via Solseek are; nvidia-glx-driver-common nvidia-glx-driver-current

When I hit the black screen, didn't need to sudo eopkg up as system was already up-to-date. Also thinking about it now, after I installed the Nvidia drivers via Solseek. I could have gone into the terminal and ran sudo usysconf run -f before rebooting & swapping the dislay cable?

Just from wading through the forum/github there seems to be issues with Budgie, pre-RTX Nvidia proprietary drivers & lightDM?

I'm sure its an absolute ball-ache for our Solus/Budgie team to work through these Nvidia proprietary drivers - but keep at it guys your doing stellar work!

Just some pointers @yves2 if you ever want to try Budgie in the future