Desktop wont load on Mint?

[Centauri]

Installed Mint to play around with it, ran all of the updates, installed Catalyst, rebooted... and now as soon as I log in, I get my desktop wallpaper, a notification of network connectivity and... that's it. No menus from right clicking, no taskbar, no icons...

How do I fix this? 🙁

 

[ControlD]

Installed Mint to play around with it, ran all of the updates, installed Catalyst, rebooted... and now as soon as I log in, I get my desktop wallpaper, a notification of network connectivity and... that's it. No menus from right clicking, no taskbar, no icons...

How do I fix this? 🙁

When you did the Catalyst install, did you do a sudo aticonfig --initial as your last step?

Since it appears that X is actually starting I am thinking some other update might have created a problem. What version of Mint are you using (MATE, KDE, etc.)? Have you tried selecting a different desktop to see if that works? Just hit the "sessions" icon at the logon prompt to change your desktop environment.

If no other environments work, your might consider removing Catalyst and rebooting to see if everything comes back. To remove Catalyst you will need to select the root prompt after running the recovery boot option when your PC first boots. This will give you a working command line from which Catalyst can be removed or reinstalled if needed.

 

[Centauri]

When you did the Catalyst install, did you do a sudo aticonfig --initial as your last step?

I just unpacked the installer and sudo ran the run file in terminal. After the installer completed it asked me to reboot, but Terminal still hadn't gone back to a prompt.

And I'm running Cinnamon.

Edit: Logging in with Gnome does work fine. But I definitely want to use Cinnamon. Any way to fix this without wiping and reinstalling everything? 🙁

 

[ControlD]

I just unpacked the installer and sudo ran the run file in terminal. After the installer completed it asked me to reboot, but Terminal still hadn't gone back to a prompt.

And I'm running Cinnamon.

Edit: Logging in with Gnome does work fine. But I definitely want to use Cinnamon. Any way to fix this without wiping and reinstalling everything? 🙁

I would try doing a recovery boot, and then launch a root command prompt (pretty sure that is the option name) which will open a terminal. Once the terminal is open, do a "aticonfig --initial" which should get you switched over to the Catalyst driver. Try a reboot and see what happens.

I am pretty sure Cinnamon uses video acceleration, which might explain why you are not seeing anything. There are some 2D desktop options in the Sessions list which would be an easy way to see if that is the case.

 

[Centauri]

Thanks thus far,

Logging into Cinnamon in 2D mode still doesn't load anything more than the cursor. I tried rebooting into recovery mode but when I get to the menu which offers root command as an option, I find my keyboard doesn't work and I'm unable to select anything.

Linux, I'm trying to like you... 🙁

 

[ControlD]

The keyboard not working is weird, I have not seen that before. Is your keyboard wireless by any chance?

When you boot your PC and you get to the initial menu screen, do you have more than one kernel version to choose from?

 

[ControlD]

Wait a second ... you said that Gnome gives you a working environment correct (just read your edit)? If that is the case, then boot into Gnome and run the aticonfig --initial command from a terminal.

If that does not work then I would start going backwards. Try removing the catalyst driver completely and reboot to see if your Cinnamon starts working again. If it does, reinstall Catalyst and BEFORE rebooting, run "aticonfig --initial". Reboot and see what happens.

I am assuming your are trying to use the integrated video on your APU?

 

[Centauri]

It's not wireless, but close enough - an ADB Apple Extended II with a USB adapter. Though I've not run into any other situations where it wasn't operational.

I just ran the command from within Gnome and rebooted - halfway fixed; Cinnamon now presents me with folders on the desktop through which I can browse the file system. But none of the controls for the windows (min/max/close) or any taskbar at all, so I can't actually get to anything like Terminal.

And yes, I'm using the APU's Radeon.

 

[ControlD]

OK, so I would try removing the Catalyst drivers next and see if that fixes the problem. I am running Catalyst version 13.1 with Mint 14 but I have a graphics card so I can't speak to how well the APU is supported. If removing those drivers helps then you have a couple of options. First, try a clean reinstall of the drivers after a complete removal, running the config tool before your first reboot. Second, use the open source drivers and see how they work for you.

When I get home I can link you the preferred method to remove the drivers.

Edit: Here is the link: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=121474

 

[Centauri]

Uninstalled, reinstalled, working. Thanks. 🙂

 

[ControlD]

Awesome. Enjoy it, Mint is a fantastic experience.

 

[MrColin]

Uninstalled, reinstalled, working. Thanks. 🙂

Did you get it to work by foregoing the proprietary driver? I wanted to install LMDE Cinnamon but all of the guidance I could find suggests the catalyst driver may never work without somehow rolling back all of the xserver-* packages back a few microversions.

 

[ControlD]

Did you get it to work by foregoing the proprietary driver? I wanted to install LMDE Cinnamon but all of the guidance I could find suggests the catalyst driver may never work without somehow rolling back all of the xserver-* packages back a few microversions.

If that is the case then it must be something unique to the LMDE version of Mint. I have been running with the Catalyst drivers since Mint 11 and had no major issues. The only time I run into trouble is if I do a major in-place upgrade. For example I recently added the Kubuntu backports so I could upgrade to KDE 4.10. After the upgrade was complete I needed to remove and reinstall Catalyst to get everything working correctly.

 

[Jodell88]

Did you get it to work by foregoing the proprietary driver? I wanted to install LMDE Cinnamon but all of the guidance I could find suggests the catalyst driver may never work without somehow rolling back all of the xserver-* packages back a few microversions.

That's because the AMD drivers lag behind Xorg development. It is the reason Ubuntu always ships with beta AMD drivers and that Arch dropped catalyst from the official repos a while back.