Help! Mint 19.1 Cinnamon black screen of death!

[bluesberryinn]

My ASUS K53SD will only boot in software rendering mode (dual W7 + Mint): From boot options menu, I have to select "advanced options for Linux Mint" and then, in the next menu, select "Recovery mode." When it gets to the recovery menu I select "resume normal boot" then "OK". This gets me to the login, and then the desktop. It displays an upper right corner message that informs me that it's "running in software rendering mode." The graphics card is Nvidia GeForce 610M, CPU is quad core i7 @ 2.2 GHz. So I opened Driver Manager and it informed me that the recommended Nvidia Version 390.77-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 driver was not installed (the driver installed was the Nouveau). So I went ahead and installed the Nvidia driver, and rebooted letting it chose the normal boot sequence. It seemed to be OK but the screen turned black and stayed that way, never making it to the login. Since I was then unable to boot even in recovery mode, I had to do a clean install from the USB (picking, of course, "compatibility mode"). Then I tried the non-recommended Nvidia driver and the same thing happened: Black screen of death, requiring another clean install.

Does anyone have any idea how to fix this? I should note that the very first time I installed Mint 19.0 along W7, every thing went peachy. Then that 500GB HDD died and I temporarily installed a new 320GB, which is where I am now. W7 runs fine, I just hate Windows. I want off the Microsoft plantation but this driver issue is making the escape hard.

Any expert wisdom will be appreciated.

Rod

[deepakdeshp]

Please see nvidia advise.
https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.c ... a.html?m=1

[mrmajik45]

More direct link:
https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.c ... a.html#ID1

[mrmajik45]

Do this ON YOUR OS NOT THE LIVE USB:

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sudo apt-get purge nvidia*

Restart if it DID remove a old driver if not, carry on without restart. Then:

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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

(No restart)

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sudo apt-get update

(No restart)

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sudo apt-get install nvidia-driver-390

(Restart!)

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lsmod | grep nvidia

(If it shows anything when you press enter then it's successfully installed)
If it worked then remove the PPA to not get incompatable updates.

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sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

[bluesberryinn]

Thanks I checked the Nvidia links. Did not do the command stuff because it looks like 19.1 Driver Manager may be installing the correct driver, but there is some configuration issue that is causing run level 5 (X, the Desktop) to lock up. The fix must be done in Level 2 or 3, but Mint boots to X. I just did a post on this [see Nvidia (http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/L ... rtips.html) where Nvidia suggests this may be due to a problem needing a fix in level 3 BUT Linux is booting to level X, hence a black screen. Please see Booting to a different runlevel in the link above.] Nvidia says that most Linux distros have this in the file /etc/inittab. Not to be found. So where is it?

Rod

[mrmajik45]

Hmm... My dad uses an Nvidia card with no issues on the default drivers...

[bluesberryinn]

Thanks for the info. I suspect that my problem is Nvidia's "Optimus" laptop technology, which switches to the i7's on-chip GPU when GPU load is light, to save power. Nice idea but is complex. What I may need to do is find a way to disable Optimus since the Nvidiua's Linux driver apparently doesn't switch correctly (Nvidia says as much), and just suffer shorter battery life. OR disable the Nvidia GPU and just go with the Intel GPU (that may work since I don't game or do video rendering projects). Of course a correctly working driver would be best.

Any ideas anyone?

[bluesberryinn]

mrmajik45 and deepakdeshp,

Thanks for the info. I'm planing to again try to install the Nvidia driver and boot to command line, where I plan to fix the driver so X can use it. But because I know nothing about how Cinnamon manages drivers, I first need to know
(1) What file to edit, and what edits do I need to make in it?
(2) As Cinnamon boots I assume it makes log files but what are their names and what folders they are in? (I searched in vain.)

ANY wisdom will be appreciated!

Rod