Im having the same issue as this person, but they seemed to solve it where as I have been having issues or needing more guidance:
What I have done:
Attempted an install on my pc, hardware as follows:
cpu i7-12700k
gpu RTX4090
32gb RAM
installing on external SSD
I installed with Grub since I read it works better as a dual boot with windows
Installer says everything went fine, I restart, load into grub, and then after that I just get the same blackscreen and underscore seen on the linked post.
My attempts to fix it:
boot into the live usb, mount the drive I installed the OS to chroot into the drive’s root
change user to my user account on the drive (not root, since nvidia-inst was telling me I cant run it as root)
but now that I am using my user account I can run nvidia-inst it just keeps telling me my root password is wrong (im positive Im typing it correctly as it is the same as my user’s password)
[user@EndeavourOS /]$ nvidia-inst
lspci: Unable to load libkmod resources: error -2
2025-05-28 15:19:50: Info: nvidia-inst version 25.5-1
2025-05-28 15:19:50: Info: Command line: nvidia-inst
2025-05-28 15:19:50: Info: Selected mode: nvidia (Nvidia's open source)
2025-05-28 15:19:52: Info: Installing packages: dkms nvidia-open-dkms nvidia-utils nvidia-settings nvidia-hook
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
COMMANDS TO RUN:
pacman -Syuq --noconfirm --noprogressbar --needed dkms nvidia-open-dkms nvidia-utils nvidia-settings nvidia-hook
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
==> NOTE: running the commands may take several minutes...
Root Password:
su: Authentication failure
Someone please help me figure out what Im doing wrong
So, I came back to this after dinner, only now when I boot into the live USB and chroot into the os drive, nvidia-inst is telling me “could not find Nvidia GPU”
[user@EndeavourOS /]$ nvidia-inst
pcilib: Cannot open /proc/bus/pci
lspci: Cannot find any working access method.
/usr/bin/nvidia-inst: line 618: /dev/null: Permission denied
2025-05-28 20:18:17: Info: nvidia-inst version 25.5-1
2025-05-28 20:18:17: Info: Command line: nvidia-inst
2025-05-28 20:18:17: Warning: could not find Nvidia GPU.
And if I run that command it told me to before, it essentially complains a lot about certain paths not existing or being mounted, I can paste the entire output if you think that would help but its long.
As the trend with “picking it up the next day” continues, after booting into the live usb and chroot’ing to the OS drive, I run the same command as before
Bumping, I tried doing a fresh install just in case i might have done something wrong, but still the same issue with the blackscreen and “could not find Nvidia GPU” from nvidia-inst
What I am doing:
Boot to live usb, start install, select my options, time, keyboard, etc, select KDE desktop, leave all packages default, wipe my entire (external) ssd to make room for a boot partition, swap, and primary endervour OS partition (installer is doing this part itself) I then install and boot to the drive, after it finishes booting, black screen with a non-blinking underscore.
I boot back into the live USB, mount OS drive, chroot to the drive, swap user from root to my actual user on the OS drive, run nvidia-inst and get the same errors:
[user@EndeavourOS /]$ nvidia-inst
pcilib: Cannot open /proc/bus/pci
lspci: Cannot find any working access method.
/usr/bin/nvidia-inst: line 618: /dev/null: Permission denied
2025-05-29 08:32:23: Info: nvidia-inst version 25.5-1
2025-05-29 08:32:23: Info: Command line: nvidia-inst
2025-05-29 08:32:23: Warning: could not find Nvidia GPU.
Did a fresh install, chose not to install a desktop env.
Booted to terminal after installing, nvidia-inst worked perfectly, then I went about manually installing the desktop environment and it’s up and running. In case anyone else is stuck on this in the future.
Grub, sorry, forgot to include that. I dont have a compelling reason why other than its what I know from other distros, and system.d kept failing from some “read only efi” error
Oh, sorry, when I tried both Nvidia and default, both resulted in the same black screen issue, but on this specific run of installation where i chose no desktop env, I chose the NVidia installation just because i figured it was probably installing other stuff i might need for nvidia cards
