Ubuntu 14.04, replaced nvidia card with amd radeon card, desktop starts black, Ctrl-Alt-F5 Alt-F7 returns login
 

But I would like for the desktop login to be there when I boot, like it did before, rather than having to do the keyboard dance.

Hi:

Plymouth may be the culprit.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/BlankScreen

After you login are you still getting a black screen?

https://turriebuntu.wordpress.com/ge...-black-screen/

Hopefully I didn't double post this ....

> Plymouth may be the culprit.
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/BlankScreen

Wonderful!

In /etc/default/grub, I removed 'splash' from GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT.
It works nicely!
Plus I get to watch all the init scripts run, which I have always missed.

> After you login are you still getting a black screen?

No. It works nicely. Only get the black screen at startup.

I noted a bit more carefully what was happening, especially the one important detail I forgot:
1. Boot
BIOS with __really__ large type

2. Ubuntu starts
It's the purple background and moving dot

3. screen goes black
Mode change?

4. Monitor immediately displays that it is going into powersave

5. Ctl-Alt-F5
Takes me to a character-based terminal

6. Alt-F7
At the Desktop login

> https://turriebuntu.wordpress.com/ge...-black-screen/

This doesn't suggest removing 'splash' but adding 'nomodeset'.
Seems like a heavy hammer, and might have disadvantages; cf.,
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...l_mode_setting

So, since I'm happy with the behaviour resulting from removing 'splash',
I'll stick with that

Thanks so much for your help!

Glad to hear your happy with removing splash and that's working for you.
You're Welcome bdd have a good weekend:-

Thanks for the details.