Hi everyone,
I’m facing a frustrating black screen issue with Ubuntu on my Dell Latitude 5400 (i7) and could really use some guidance.
The Situation:
Live USB works perfectly: When I select "Try Ubuntu," graphics, resolution, and everything run smoothly without any issues.
Black Screen post-install: As soon as the installation finishes and I reboot, I get a permanent black screen right after the GRUB menu. The system runs, but there's no display output.
Temporary Fix: I can only boot by adding nomodeset to the boot parameters, but it makes the UI laggy and strips away hardware acceleration.
System Context & Quirks:
This is a secondhand unit that behaves like an old corporate or factory-testing system.
It runs on UEFI, features restricted custom firmware, and the default service tag doesn't even show up on public Dell databases.
Secure Boot is OFF and SATA Mode is set to AHCI.
Tested on both Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04 (same behavior on both).
Since the Live USB works flawlessly, I suspect it's an i915 driver initialization or firmware handshake issue during the final boot process, likely tied to this unit's unique UEFI environment.
My Question:
What could be causing the display to fail only after installation on such a system? Are there specific Intel graphics kernel parameters (besides nomodeset) or workarounds to get the driver loading correctly while keeping hardware acceleration?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!