Kali Linux is a popular operating system for penetration testing and ethical hacking. However, some users may encounter issues when trying to use it, such as a black screen when trying to boot up. This issue can be caused by the nouveau driver, which is a default open-source driver for NVIDIA graphics cards. In this article, we will go over the steps to fix the black screen issue caused by the nouveau driver in Kali Linux 6.5.0-kali3-amd64.
Identifying the Issue
The first step in fixing the black screen issue is to identify that it is indeed being caused by the nouveau driver. To do this, you can try booting into Kali Linux with the "nomodeset" option enabled. This option disables the kernel mode setting for the graphics card, which can help to identify if the issue is caused by the nouveau driver.
To boot with the "nomodeset" option, you will need to edit the boot options. At the GRUB boot menu, press the "e" key to edit the boot options. Then, find the line that starts with "linux" and add "nomodeset" to the end of that line. Press "Ctrl+x" to boot with the modified options. If the black screen issue is caused by the nouveau driver, then you should now be able to boot into Kali Linux with the "nomodeset" option enabled.
Disabling the nouveau Driver
Now that we have identified that the black screen issue is caused by the nouveau driver, we can move on to disabling it. This can be done by editing the blacklist file to prevent the nouveau driver from being loaded at boot time. To do this, you will need to open the blacklist file with a text editor. You can use the following command to open the blacklist file:
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
Once the blacklist file is open, you can add the following line to the end of the file:
blacklist nouveau
This line tells the system to blacklist the nouveau driver, which will prevent it from being loaded at boot time. After adding this line, save the blacklist file and exit the text editor. Then, you can update the initial ramdisk by running the following command:
sudo update-initramfs -u
This command updates the initial ramdisk with the new blacklist settings. After running this command, you can reboot the system to apply the changes.
Installing the NVIDIA Driver
Now that we have disabled the nouveau driver, we can move on to installing the NVIDIA driver. This can be done by adding the NVIDIA graphics driver repository and installing the driver from there. To do this, you will need to run the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-driver-418
These commands add the NVIDIA graphics driver repository, update the package list, and install the NVIDIA driver. After installing the driver, you can reboot the system to apply the changes.
In this article, we have gone over the steps to fix the black screen issue caused by the nouveau driver in Kali Linux 6.5.0-kali3-amd64. This issue can be caused by the default open-source driver for NVIDIA graphics cards, which can be fixed by disabling the nouveau driver and installing the NVIDIA driver. By following the steps outlined in this article, you should be able to fix the black screen issue and use Kali Linux with your NVIDIA graphics card.
References
| Title | URL |
|---|---|
| Kali Linux - Nouveau Driver | https://www.kali.org/docs/general-use/nouveau-driver/ |
| Kali Linux - Installing NVIDIA Drivers | https://www.kali.org/docs/general-use/nvidia-driver/ |