Macbook pro: mavericks, 5.2, graphics: nvidia geforce 9600M

I followed the guides from here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFIBooting#Detect_.28U.29EFI_firmware_processor_architecture and http://www.rodsbooks.com/ubuntu-efi/.

What I have is the following:

/dev/sda

• apple partitions
• /boot
• / (root)
• swap

When installing ubuntu, I did not install the boot loader during installation but did so in a chroot environment after installing grub-efi. I installed grub to /dev/sda1 (efi) which created the grub64.efi file in efi/ubuntu. This allows the refined boot manager to bring up grub and select ubuntu however, the graphics does not work. Even after adding nomodeset and removing quiet/splash from the kernel parameters.

Any ideas on what could be wrong?

To be clear, if I remove quiet/splash, I can see all the text startup messages being printed out however, the display manager doesn't appear to start (the screen stays black). Oddly enough though, the ubuntu startup sound can be heard.