dist-upgrade borks my fresh install of 13 Maya KDE - help

[NicoleCtrl]

I'd really like to use 13 Maya KDE because I was impressed with the live USB session, but am having major difficulties.

After a fresh install, with everything going well, I log in and launch MintUpdate. The first thing I notice is how buggy MintUpdate is, sometimes disappearing and having to be re-opened (this happened many times), and sometimes hanging indefinitely. The first update is an update to MintUpdate itself, which hangs indefinitely, forcing me to xkill it after several minutes.

So in terminal I did apt-get update, then apt-get dist-upgrade which involves like 450+ updates and takes longer than the initial install itself. I don't mind that but the big problem is that after being prompted to restart my computer, I restart and am quickly greeted with a black screen on boot. No text whatsoever, no anything at all, just total 100% borked, and I have no idea how to fix that or what even went wrong, since I was just doing a dist-upgrade on a fresh install. I replicated this failing twice but I rather not try this a third time and risk wasting several hours of time again unless I know for sure what's causing this. It's really a shame because this version of Mint KDE is really terrific and I'd love to use it. Thanks for any help.

[claudecat]

Sounds like video driver issues... I'd try doing the "Additional Drivers" thing prior to updating the system. Also, I always have better luck using Synaptic rather than Mint-update for the initial (huge) round of updates, though I doubt that's really a factor here. I'm guessing you have an Nvidia graphics card that doesn't play well with the free driver (nouveau) when combined with the updated kernel.

[remoulder]

apt-get dist-upgrade

The question is why you are doing a dist-upgrade in the first place? If all you wanted to do was upgrade packages and didn't want to use mintupdate, you should have used apt upgrade, synaptic or installed the ubuntu update manager.

[kc1di]

dist-upgrade more than likely updated the kernel and thus threw you video driver into non operating status.
you may have to revert back to the older kernel to get it working.
on the boot screen when you first boot mint. how may kernels are listed? if more than one try the older of the two and see if you can get into mint.
If you can go to synaptic and remove the one not being used. (the newer one).

good Luck

[NicoleCtrl]

Sounds like video driver issues... I'd try doing the "Additional Drivers" thing prior to updating the system. Also, I always have better luck using Synaptic rather than Mint-update for the initial (huge) round of updates, though I doubt that's really a factor here. I'm guessing you have an Nvidia graphics card that doesn't play well with the free driver (nouveau) when combined with the updated kernel.

claudecat: I use an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6250, an integrated GPU in my netbook.

The same thing happened twice. I think the first time I manually installed the newest ATI driver from ATI's website, before doing dist-upgrade. And the second time I didn't install any proprietary driver (was just using the open-source one) when I did dist-upgrade. Does that still suggest to you a video driver issue?

The question is why you are doing a dist-upgrade in the first place? If all you wanted to do was upgrade packages and didn't want to use mintupdate, you should have used apt upgrade, synaptic or installed the ubuntu update manager.

remoulder: What is wrong with dist-upgrade? I read up on the difference between upgrade and dist-upgrade long ago and came away with the idea that dist-upgrade is usually better, plus I've done it many times before on other Ubuntu and Mint distros and never had a problem, especially on fresh installs.

I was doing it because Mint 13 KDE came out months ago so I just wanted to have everything up to date. Isn't that what people use the command for?

dist-upgrade more than likely updated the kernel and thus threw you video driver into non operating status.
you may have to revert back to the older kernel to get it working.
on the boot screen when you first boot mint. how may kernels are listed? if more than one try the older of the two and see if you can get into mint.
If you can go to synaptic and remove the one not being used. (the newer one).

kc1di: This happened with both an open-source driver (the one contained in the .ISO I presume) and a proprietary one manually installed from ATI's website. Do you still think the cause you stated is likely to be the culprit?

As for GRUB listing different kernels on boot, well, I never even see GRUB after Mint 13 KDE installs... before or after dist-upgrade... and I don't know what's up with that. It's never happened before with other distros. On boot it goes from the OEM's screen (whatever that's called, the one with some system info) to black screen for about a minute, then to KDE's login manager. That's what normally happens before I attempt to upgrade stuff and ruin everything in the process.

For anyone reading, I was also wondering what people do during dist-upgrade when it comes to three files that you're asked to either replace or keep. I believe they were "issue", "issue.net", and "lsb-release", or something like that. I checked the differences between the revisions and the stock .ISO ones have what looks like Mint identifying info, while the updated ones have Ubuntu identifying info. I was a bit confused because obviously the older Mint-identifying files are custom for Mint but the newer Ubuntu-identifying files might be needed to work well with all the other upgrades?

So, I'm still uncertain and if possible I'd like some more feedback before tinkering and trying again. Every failed attempt kinda wastes several hours of my day unfortunately. Thanks for the help.

[kc1di]

kc1di: This happened with both an open-source driver (the one contained in the .ISO I presume) and a proprietary one manually installed from ATI's website. Do you still think the cause you stated is likely to be the culprit?

As for GRUB listing different kernels on boot, well, I never even see GRUB after Mint 13 KDE installs... before or after dist-upgrade... and I don't know what's up with that. It's never happened before with other distros. On boot it goes from the OEM's screen (whatever that's called, the one with some system info) to black screen for about a minute, then to KDE's login manager. That's what normally happens before I attempt to upgrade stuff and ruin everything in the process.

For anyone reading, I was also wondering what people do during dist-upgrade when it comes to three files that you're asked to either replace or keep. I believe they were "issue", "issue.net", and "lsb-release", or something like that. I checked the differences between the revisions and the stock .ISO ones have what looks like Mint identifying info, while the updated ones have Ubuntu identifying info. I was a bit confused because obviously the older Mint-identifying files are custom for Mint but the newer Ubuntu-identifying files might be needed to work well with all the other upgrades?

So, I'm still uncertain and if possible I'd like some more feedback before tinkering and trying again. Every failed attempt kinda wastes several hours of my day unfortunately. Thanks for the help.

Yes , I'm still thinking it's a video issue because of an updated kernel that the videoo driver is not compatible with or needs to be rebuilt for.
as for not seeing the grub terminal on boot up you can fix that by doing the following:
in a terminal type:

Code: Select all

sudo gedit

enter passwd when asked.
when gedit comes up open the following file :

Code: Select all

/etc/default/grub

scroll down until you see a line that look similar to this

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#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

or something similar
remove the # symbol from the front of that line and for now change the 640x480 to 1024x768 so it now would look like this

Code: Select all

GRUB_GFXMODE=1024x768

save the file
exit gedit
in the terminal type:

Code: Select all

sudo update-grub

when it is finished reboot.
you should now see the grub terminal on boot up look and see if their is more than one kernel listed.
if there is select the lowest numbered one an she if it will boot into the desktop.
let me know

[remoulder]

I've done it many times before on other Ubuntu and Mint distros and never had a problem

That may be so and if you know what you are doing then that is fine. However since you now have a problem as a result and are asking for help, plus advice on the right choice when asked to replace system files, perhaps you should ask yourself whether you have sufficient knowledge to be doing that? You should also bear in mind that the changes a dist-upgrade make may not necessarily result in a stable system? Since you have decided to take those risks, good luck.