Help ! With Linux Mint 18.3

[biodoc]

Darn, I don't have a clue to what happened there. Linux never does automatic boots. Perhaps the display manager crashed? Next time that happens try CTL +ALT + F1 to get to a whole screen terminal. Then log in and run:
sudo service mdm restart

 

[Markfw]

Darn, I don't have a clue to what happened there. Linux never does automatic boots. Perhaps the display manager crashed? Next time that happens try CTL +ALT + F1 to get to a whole screen terminal. Then log in and run:
sudo service mdm restart

Thats the problem, no screen to see anything, all black after the boot, except you can see the mouse cursor. So even If I did those keys, I could not see to type anything,

Is there a repair mode ? boot in compatability mode and then repair somehow ?

 

[biodoc]

OK, new twist... The latest install on my second threadripper box was perfect when I went to bed last night, and it rebooted sometime in the night, and now if just has a mouse cursor, no other screen. So until I know what to do, its back to running win 10.

I seem to remember a couple of years back, that Pokey had a unique way of handling a window/linux dual boot system on motherboards that had a UEFI bios.

Ok so you have a windows box with a single boot drive.

1) install a second HDD
2) unplug the Windows HDD
3) install linux on the second drive
4) plug the Windows HDD drive back in.
5) boot into UEFI bios and then choose which drive to boot on, Windows or linux.

Grub dual boot is now not relevant. Does this make sense?

 

[Markfw]

I seem to remember a couple of years back, that Pokey had a unique way of handling a window/linux dual boot system on motherboards that had a UEFI bios.

Ok so you have a windows box with a single boot drive.

1) install a second HDD
2) unplug the Windows HDD
3) install linux on the second drive
4) plug the Windows HDD drive back in.
5) boot into UEFI bios and then choose which drive to boot on, Windows or linux.

Grub dual boot is now not relevant. Does this make sense?

Here is the deal. The windows and boot drive is an NVME drive, not easy to remove. There is already a second 500 gig hard drive where linux is installed. The boot manager works fine to switch between. But the linux boot was working perfectly. but now is just a black screen.

 

[biodoc]

Thats the problem, no screen to see anything, all black after the boot, except you can see the mouse cursor. So even If I did those keys, I could not see to type anything,

Is there a repair mode ? boot in compatability mode and then repair somehow ?

The point of CTL +ALT + F1 is to bring you to a console with a command prompt where you can log in and restart the display manger. I don't why it crashed. Perhaps it's a problem with the 387 drivers?

If you can restart the mint display manager (sudo service mdm restart) then open up the xorg.conf (Xed /etc/X11/xorg.conf) and post it here I might be able to diagnose the problem.

I know the the switch highlighted in bold from the following command from the brony guide caused cinnamon to crash on my system.

sudo nvidia-xconfig -a --cool-bits=28 --allow-empty-initial-configuration

 

[Markfw]

The point of CTL +ALT + F1 is to bring you to a console with a command prompt where you can log in and restart the display manger. I don't why it crashed. Perhaps it's a problem with the 387 drivers?

If you can restart the mint display manager (sudo service mdm restart) then open up the xorg.conf (Xed /etc/X11/xorg.conf) and post it here I might be able to diagnose the problem.

I know the the switch highlighted in bold from the following command from the brony guide caused cinnamon to crash on my system.

sudo nvidia-xconfig -a --cool-bits=28 --allow-empty-initial-configuration

This could be a problem. When I type sudo service mdm restart
I get
failed to restart mdm.service: Unit mdm.service not found

 

[biodoc]

This could be a problem. When I type sudo service mdm restart
I get
failed to restart mdm.service: Unit mdm.service not found

I googled and found that mint dropped mdm in version 18.2 and now uses lightdm

try

sudo service lightdm restart

 

[Markfw]

First, I want to apologize if I sounded harsh. I did not understand that ctrl+alt+F1 in a graphical black screen took me to a text-only terminal window. Not being a linux person I am learning. Since it has something to do with the display, I started installing 384 version before you posted this. I will reply back when its finished.

 

[biodoc]

First, I want to apologize if I sounded harsh. I did not understand that ctrl+alt+F1 in a graphical black screen took me to a text-only terminal window. Not being a linux person I am learning. Since it has something to do with the display, I started installing 384 version before you posted this. I will reply back when its finished.

You didn't sound harsh at all to me. I should have explained the function of the ctrl+alt+F1!

Hopefully the 384 drivers work. I did find other people have problems with lightdm and nvidia drivers so you are not alone. Linux can be frustrating at times for all of us!

 

[Markfw]

well, the 384 drivers appeared to install. I rebooted, and black screen. So I did to lightdm restart, and it went from text to graphic black screen and only a mouse cursor again.

 

[StefanR5R]

Does

$ lspci -v | grep "in use"​

contain nvidia or nouveau?

 

[biodoc]

well, the 384 drivers appeared to install. I rebooted, and black screen. So I did to lightdm restart, and it went from text to graphic black screen and only a mouse cursor again.

Lots of people have this problem with nvidia driver install and lightdm but I haven't found an obvious solution yet.

try uninstalling lightdm and then reinstalling it.

sudo apt-get remove --purge lightdm
sudo apt-get install lightdm

try starting it again

sudo service lightdm start

 

[biodoc]

I'm thinking you may need to add nomodeset to the grub command line.

 

[Markfw]

Lots of people have this problem with nvidia driver install and lightdm but I haven't found an obvious solution yet.

try uninstalling lightdm and then reinstalling it.

sudo apt-get remove --purge lightdm
sudo apt-get install lightdm

try starting it again

sudo service lightdm start

Rats, no change

 

[Markfw]

I'm thinking you may need to add nomodeset to the grub command line.

Add to what command ?

 

[Markfw]

Does

$ lspci -v | grep "in use"​

contain nvidia or nouveau?

wow, like 32 entries. nvidia is 2 of them. A lot are pcieport, nvme is there, xhcihcd, ccp,snd_hda_intel iwlwifi, achi piix4_smbusigb twice and I may have missed some.

 

[biodoc]

Add to what command ?

I think the easiest way to do this is to use nano to edit /etc/default/grub file. nano is a terminal text editor so it is primitive. You use curser keys to navigate the document. Find this line and add nomodeset to where I have it as bold text.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

add nomodeset to the line above.

CTRL+ o to save file (letter o)
CTRL + x to exit nano

sudo update-grub

sudo reboot

 

[Markfw]

I think the easiest way to do this is to use nano to edit /etc/default/grub file. nano is a terminal text editor so it is primitive. You use curser keys to navigate the document. Find this line and add nomodeset to where I have it as bold text.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

add nomodeset to the line above.

CTRL+ o to save file (letter o)
CTRL + x to exit nano

sudo update-grub

sudo reboot

I tried chmod 777 and chmod +w on grub, and it denies it, and I can't save it.

 

[biodoc]

I tried chmod 777 and chmod +w on grub, and it denies it, and I can't save it.

Weird, I can edit and write mine as sudo

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1264 Dec 19 18:12 grub

 

[StefanR5R]

Does

$ lspci -v | grep "in use"​

contain nvidia or nouveau?

wow, like 32 entries. nvidia is 2 of them. A lot are pcieport, nvme is there, xhcihcd, ccp,snd_hda_intel iwlwifi, achi piix4_smbusigb twice and I may have missed some.

This is correct then. If you just type "lspci -v", you see which PCI(e) devices are bound to which drivers, and more.
I asked because I wondered whether the GPUs might still have been driven by nouveau instead of nvidia by some strange accident. But that's not it.

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

I tried chmod 777 and chmod +w on grub, and it denies it, and I can't save it.

Sounds as if the filesystem on which /etc resides was mounted read-only, e.g. due to disk corruption...?

 

[Markfw]

Weird, I can edit and write mine as sudo

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1264 Dec 19 18:12 grub

OK< I logged in normal. Did the ctrl-atl-F1, and logged in as user mark (the only user on the system) but by the protections (same as yours) they are owned by root.

silly me, I did not use sudo nano, I used vi. Rebooting now. same problem !

 

[biodoc]

Try option one to see if nomodeset works

EDIT: Ignore this!

 

[biodoc]

The only other thing I can think of is to disable UEFI secure boot. I think that worked for one post I saw on-line.

The hardware must be the problem because all of your other installs worked.

 

[Markfw]

The only other thing I can think of is to disable UEFI secure boot. I think that worked for one post I saw on-line.

The hardware must be the problem because all of your other installs worked.

Thats part of the SOP, and I did that already. Going to boot windows for now and get some kind of points. If we could figure out why windows is so low on PPD, maybe it would fix unix ?

 

[biodoc]

Thats part of the SOP, and I did that already. Going to boot windows for now and get some kind of points. If we could figure out why windows is so low on PPD, maybe it would fix unix ?

The windows low ppd problem is beyond me.

If you don't mind, try editing that line in grub to this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text nomodeset"