Kali Linux boots into black screen with solid underscore

aceman778

Reputable
Dec 30, 2014
48
0
4,540
Hey all,

So I wanted to install Kali Linux on my 2010 MacBook Pro, I went through the installation well until I got to the login, once I enter my details and click login I will get a grey background and nothing else, couldn't do anything. So I rebooted got up to the bit where it asks for the username, I open the non-gui instance of Terminal and use

PHP:
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && apt-get dist-upgrade
and rebooted, and ever since then, I boot into a black screen with an underscore at the top left. I've searched all over Google and tried dozens of solutions and nothing has worked. I have tried reinstalling, multiple times, I attempted to install Nvidia drivers (nvidia-legacy-340xx) but it caused an error booting "Failed to start load kernel"

Downloaded version 4.12, using update and upgrade commands made version 4.13. Same result on both versions.

Any help would be appreciated.


Thanks.
 
Solution
When you got grey background after logging in, the first thing you should do is use non-gui terminal to check Xorg logs in /var/log to see why your gui is not loading properly.
Kali linux is based on debian so maybe you can find some useful information here: https://wiki.debian.org/MacBookPro
There is also some info in archwiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBookPro7,1#Video
Maybe try nouveau first and if that works, then try to get nvidia drivers to work.

Sylvvester

Distinguished
Nov 22, 2010
160
0
18,760
When you got grey background after logging in, the first thing you should do is use non-gui terminal to check Xorg logs in /var/log to see why your gui is not loading properly.
Kali linux is based on debian so maybe you can find some useful information here: https://wiki.debian.org/MacBookPro
There is also some info in archwiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBookPro7,1#Video
Maybe try nouveau first and if that works, then try to get nvidia drivers to work.
 
Solution

McHenryB

Admirable
Kali frequently causes problems on MacBooks - it doesn't seem to be very well suited to the hardware. But you could try Googling "kali linux macbook pro 2010 problems" for a number of suggestions.

Unless you really need the particular features of Kali (i.e. you are a security professional) you would be much better advised to use a more mainstream distribution.