[SOLVED] Black Screen at Boot - No Cinnamon GUI

[cmbr]

At the end of the boot process now, I only see a black screen with a flashing cursor at the top left. Prior to this failure, Linux Mint has been running as expected for weeks.

Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon, kernel: 4.15.0-23-generic
LCD Monitor: Acer S201HL with a DVI input

I consulted Fixing the black screen after grub boot-up (screen/video settings mismatch) and numerous other Web pages and forum threads.

I'm not sure but the failure to boot into Cinnamon might be related to the installation of version 17.1 of the FreeCAD program earlier in the day. (Several pieces of Python software were installed as part of the FreeCAD installation.)

Here's a few things that I've tried:

Boot to GRUB. Highlight the default Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 64-bit entry. Hit e to invoke the GRUB editor. Add i915.modeset=0 to the end of the linux line. Hit F10 to boot.

Upon booting I do not see the familiar LM logo but the five horizontal green or white dots are visible. Unfortunately, the boot process stops with five green dots and the disk activity ceases. The GUI does not appear.

Second attempt at GRUB editing: add nomodeset at the end of the linux line.
This time I see the Linux Mint 18.3 text and four green or white dots. Now I am presented with a terminal in which I can log in but the GUI doesn't start.

While in the terminal, I did a sudo apt-get update and a sudo apt-get upgrade. No upgrades were available.
I also did a sudo apt-get autoremove. There was nothing to remove.

Tried kernel 4.13.0-41-generic. No help.

Booted into recovery mode. Ran the fsck file system check. No problems found. Ran dpkg to repair broken packages. Apparently there was nothing to be done there. Ran grub to update the GRUB bootloader. Selected resume to finish the boot from the Recovery mode. The only error I saw was a (probably unrelated) Fail to Start for the lighttpd daemon. I ended up at a terminal screen but still no GUI.

Here's the output of my inxi -F commmand:

Code: Select all

System:    Host: CMBDesktop Kernel: 4.15.0-23-generic x86_64 (64 bit)
           Console: tty 1 Distro: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia
Machine:   System: ASUS product: All Series
           Mobo: ASUSTeK model: H81M-C v: Rev X.0x
           Bios: American Megatrends v: 3501 date: 10/21/2016
CPU:       Dual core Intel Pentium G3250 (-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB 
           clock speeds: max: 3200 MHz 1: 1266 MHz 2: 1442 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
           Display Server: X.org 1.18.4 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           tty size: 80x25 Advanced Data: N/A out of X
Audio:     Card Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-23-generic
Network:   Card: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169
           IF: enp3s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full
           mac: f8:32:e4:be:58:3e
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 371.2GB (30.1% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD2500KS size: 250.1GB
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: ST380815AS size: 80.0GB
           ID-3: /dev/sdc model: IBM size: 9.1GB
           ID-4: USB /dev/sdd model: USB_2.0_FD size: 32.0GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 214G used: 42G (21%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 16.81GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8C mobo: 27.8C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0
Info:      Processes: 136 Uptime: 12 min Memory: 322.4/7848.1MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.2.35

Do you have any thoughts about this failure? What should I try next to get my Cinnamon desktop back?

[cmbr]

I eventually solved this problem using the following procedure:

• At the black screen with the flashing cursor, open a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+F2. Log in.

• Enter startx to start the Cinnamon desktop. If this is successful, it probably will not be persistent. You'll have to do it at the next boot too.

• Next, from a terminal, reinstall the Cinnamon package: sudo apt install mint-meta-cinnamon

• Update the kernel: sudo update-initramfs -u -k 4.15.0-23-generic [Use your version number here in place of my 4.15.0-23.]

• Then update the GRUB: sudo update-grub

Now I have a normal boot and the Cinnamon desktop is back.