Linux Mint Forums

I've been lurking the linux mint forums for the last few months...
a bit of background, since this is my first post and this actually seems a bit like a real "community" forum...i've been somewhat techy my whole life, but never really dabbled in linux/unix...my friends were big into redhat in the early years (circa when they went public...not trying to date myself)..but i stayed in my windows comfort, through the good (98, 7) and bad (ME, vista)
I've been intensely into android for about 4 years now...and always knew about its base in linux. i modified a few themes here and there, worked with some free apps...liked what i did, so i tried a bit more with linux...and went to xbmcbuntu..which went great and love the stable and quickness of its base...but alas, my hardware was "too new" at the time, wasn't properly supported..and since my htpc had an SSD with relatively good hardware, i just went with xbmc for windows, booted as shell

but all this to say, i'm trying to fully immerse myself in the linux environment, as i love the mentality, the approach, etc..after reading a few articles, i decided to try linux mint...specifically, cinnamon
after the installation and first boot went smoothly, i was excited and primed...then i rebooted..thus came my immense frustration with linux.i got the semi infamous "failed to start x server" message, could not boot into the DE/gui...no matter what i did (i've followed every thread on here on how to fix this error...from editing grub, to Xorg.conf, etc etc...absolutely nothing worked and i could not boot)..so i went back to windows for a few days
i'm not one to give up, so i said screw it, i'll try again...this time with linux mint MATE
everything installed and booted fine...then i restarted..and EVERYTHING STILL WORKED! so now i'm playing with MATE...but i loved cinnamon's option for configuration...i really do like mate, but the minutes i had with cinnamon made me feel like i should use that, for my purposes...

so everything is fine and dandy since i'm running linux mint (14 - nadia) MATE...but cinnamon did not want to boot at all
the ONLY difference i had with both installations was that MATE was 32 bit and cinnamon was 64 bit...could that be what is causing the problem?

I have windows 7 64 bit dual booting on the same machine without a problem (for years now)

my hardware is a bit dated...but everything else works as planned...
CPU: intel Q6600 (quad 2.4 ghz)
motherboard: Asus P5N-MX (using onboard video...i don't do ANY gaming)
4 gigs of ram
two HDD...both WD..one 640gb, the other 2tb.. (using the 2tb one for storage...movies, tv, music)

any idea on what would be causing that failed to start x server error? or could it possibly be the driver(s) for my motherboard are just not compatible with the 64 bit version and 32 bit cinnamon should work just as well? (one the first boot of cinnamon, which i tried 2-3 times reinstalling while getting this error, i tried changing the drivers in the settings to proprietary drivers, open source drivers, etc....same result)

thanks for the help!

Hello truthlesshero and welcome to the Linux mint forums

it's unlikely that the 64 bit /32 bit things has much to do with your problems with cinnamon, What the real difference is between Mate and Cinnamon is that Mate uses a gnome 2 x base and cinnamon is based on gnome 3. your problem is most likely due to the video card and 3d acceleration. It may be you'll need to install a different driver to get it to work. but in order to be of further help on that score will need to know what video card is in use.
if you do not know the make model and chipset of your card simply go to a terminal and type this command and list the results here.

Thanks for the reply...I should've specified the chipset..I mentioned I used on board video..so for my motherboard, it's
NVIDIA GeForce 7050 / nForce 610i chipset

So the problem is more mate vs cinnamon rather than 32 bit vs 64 bit?

truthlesshero wrote:Thanks for the reply...I should've specified the chipset..I mentioned I used on board video..so for my motherboard, it's
NVIDIA GeForce 7050 / nForce 610i chipset

So the problem is more mate vs cinnamon rather than 32 bit vs 64 bit?

I think I see the problem it is perhaps indeed the video card and the newer drivers.
If your satisfied with mate then just keep using it if it works for you but if you really want cinnamon here's what to try.
first boot into cinnamon with the "nomodeset" kernal perimeter. Here's a page that will tell you how to do that. http://askubuntu.com/questions/38780/ho ... stallation
then once int cinnamon go to menu > administration >synaptic package manager.
refresh the manager, the do a search for nvidia you looking for the 310.xx driver that the one that should be compatible with the newer kernel and
the legacy card that your running (this is of course after you've installed the cinnamon version of Mint.
if you can't get to the desktop let me know and I'll tell you how to install that driver from the command line.

You may also check to see if you need the 304.xx driver. My onboard nvidia card won't work with the newest nvidia driver.

As you have no problem with MATE but Cinnamon is a no-go I suggest that you do not have proper drivers or more likely that your video card just is not powerful enough for Cinnamon.
Cinnamon requires a whole lot more including hardware acceleration etc.