[SOLVED] Can't boot Linux after installing driver.

[CantingNebula86]

I am using Acer aspire 5 a515-56g laptop, and Linux mint 20.3 cinnamon edition.
I'm very new to Linux, downloaded it yesterday. Today I installed nVidia driver (520), and restarted it. Now when I try to boot it, it will tell error with 0x0 code. I tried searching on the forum, but couldn't find a problem like this. I tried reinstalling, didn't work. I have no idea what to do.

[dorsetUK]

I am using Acer aspire 5 a515-56g laptop, and Linux mint 20.3 cinnamon edition.
I'm very new to Linux, downloaded it yesterday. Today I installed nVidia driver (520), and restarted it. Now when I try to boot it, it will tell error with 0x0 code. I tried searching on the forum, but couldn't find a problem like this. I tried reinstalling, didn't work. I have no idea what to do.

Hi CantingNebula86.

To be in a position to help you we need to know the full details of your computer.

If you click on the Start button and type - system reports – and then launch / run that program. Next, on the left hand side of System Reports window, click on System information, then the Copy button.

Come back here and Paste.

That will give us the details of your computer and then someone will be able to help.

If you’re Terminally based then open your Terminal and paste

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxpmrz

into it and then hit Enter/Return.

Go to Edit, Select All, and then Copy, come back here, click on the code tags, </>, and then paste, Ctrl V.

It'd be also nice if you let us know how you installed the driver.

[zcot]

Now when I try to boot it, it will tell error with 0x0 code.

I tried reinstalling, didn't work.

Hi CantingNebula86, Welcome.

So, are you able to boot to the desktop? or to the login screen maybe? Or you get a failure during the Mint boot logo and it stops.

When you say you tried reinstalling, you mean the driver? -so this is a good sign since it would mean you can get the desktop.

If you can get the desktop, go use the Driver Manager again and install the 520 driver that does NOT say nvidia "open". Just use the driver where is does not have the "recommended" marking. Do not use the "open" nvidia driver.

[CantingNebula86]

Replying to zoot
By reinstalling i mean Linux and driver, i can only get to the desktop in the installer USB comparability mode, I don't think it did anything, but when I try to boot Linux, I just get what I thought was a terminal, but i can't do anything in it, in a couple of minutes it will show an error with 0x0 code.
I spent half of the day trying to find solutions, nothing.

[SMG]

i can only get to the desktop in the installer USB comparability mode

Then please do that and provide us with information about your hardware and how Linux Mint sees it. Open the System Reports app and click the System Information tab on the left. Your computer's information should come up in the right pane. Then click Copy, and paste the results into a reply window here so we can see how Linux Mint views your hardware.

I don't think it did anything, but when I try to boot Linux, I just get what I thought was a terminal, but i can't do anything in it, in a couple of minutes it will show an error with 0x0 code.

A photo of that would help.

Were you seeing a flashing cursor in the left on a black screen?

Several people ran into issues recently on LM20.3 when installing Nvidia drivers. I do not know why the problem happened, but both people I helped were able to get back into their system. I have moved your topic to Installation & Boot because that is the issue you are having.

Is there a reason you installed LM20.3 instead of installing LM21? Are you dual-booting with Windows?

[CantingNebula86]

Replying to SMG
Sorry for late reply, it was night
So here's the system info:

Code: Select all

System:    Kernel: 5.4.0-91-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 5.2.7 
           wm: muffin dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 20.3 Una base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Acer product: Aspire A515-56G v: V1.26 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: TGL model: Iris_TL v: V1.26 serial: <filter> UEFI: Insyde v: 1.26 
           date: 03/14/2022 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 37.5 Wh condition: 39.4/53.0 Wh (74%) volts: 15.0/15.4 
           model: PANASONIC AP19B5L serial: <filter> status: Discharging 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1115G4 bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
           arch: Tiger Lake rev: 1 L2 cache: 6144 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 23961 
           Speed: 3278 MHz min/max: 400/4100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2696 2: 2814 3: 2770 
           4: 2718 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: N/A bus ID: 0000:00:02.0 
           chip ID: 8086:9a78 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GP107M [GeForce MX350] vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: N/A 
           bus ID: 0000:01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:1c94 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: fbdev unloaded: modesetting,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~77Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 12.0.0 256 bits) v: 4.5 Mesa 21.0.3 compat-v: 3.1 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: sof-audio-pci 
           bus ID: 0000:00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:a0c8 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-91-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Intel driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 5000 bus ID: 0000:00:14.3 
           chip ID: 8086:a0f0 
           IF: wlp0s20f3 state: up mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
           vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 3000 bus ID: 0000:02:00.0 
           chip ID: 10ec:8168 
           IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 267.33 GiB used: 2.17 GiB (0.8%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Western Digital model: PC SN530 SDBPNPZ-256G-1114 
           size: 238.47 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> 
           ID-2: /dev/sda type: USB vendor: Kingston model: DataTraveler 3.0 size: 28.85 GiB 
           serial: <filter> 
RAID:      Hardware-1: Intel Volume Management Device NVMe RAID Controller driver: vmd v: 0.6 
           bus ID: 0000:00:0e.0 chip ID: 8086.9a0b 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 3.78 GiB used: 75.0 MiB (1.9%) fs: overlay source: ERR-102 
USB:       Hub: 1-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 12 rev: 2.0 chip ID: 1d6b:0002 
           Hub: 1-4:6 info: Genesys Logic Hub ports: 4 rev: 2.0 chip ID: 05e3:0608 
           Device-1: 1-4.3:8 info: Kingston DataTraveler 100 G3/G4/SE9 G2 type: Mass Storage 
           driver: usb-storage rev: 2.1 chip ID: 0951:1666 
           Device-2: 1-4.4:10 info: USB2.0 Hub type: Keyboard,Mouse driver: hid-generic,usbhid 
           rev: 1.1 chip ID: 30fa:2350 
           Device-3: 1-5:7 info: A4Tech USB Device type: Keyboard,Mouse,HID 
           driver: hid-generic,usbhid rev: 1.1 chip ID: 09da:538c 
           Device-4: 1-7:9 info: Elan Micro ELAN:Fingerprint type: <vendor specific> driver: N/A 
           rev: 2.0 chip ID: 04f3:0c4f 
           Device-5: 1-8:11 info: Quanta HD User Facing type: Video driver: uvcvideo rev: 2.0 
           chip ID: 0408:a061 
           Device-6: 1-10:12 info: Intel type: Bluetooth driver: btusb rev: 2.0 chip ID: 8087:0026 
           Hub: 2-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 4 rev: 3.1 chip ID: 1d6b:0003 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 70.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           1: deb cdrom:[Linux Mint 20.3 _Una_ - Release amd64 20220104]/ focal contrib main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
           1: deb http: //packages.linuxmint.com una main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
           2: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
           3: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
           4: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
           5: deb http: //security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
           6: deb http: //archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
Info:      Processes: 226 Uptime: 4m Memory: 7.56 GiB used: 1.22 GiB (16.2%) Init: systemd v: 245 
           runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Client: Unknown python3.8 client inxi: 3.0.38 

I do have a flashing cursor (i will reply with the image soon, sorry)
I forgot to specify, at first I didn't think it was because of drivers, I had mint 21. I saw that some people were saying that Linux Mint 20.3 has less bugs, so i installed it, gave it a try. Then I found out it was the driver problem, so I spent 3 hours trying to delete the drivers.
Sorry if I made some grammar mistakes, English isn't my native language, my native lanuage is Ukrainian.
Thanks for replying.

[CantingNebula86]

Here's the photo
Needed to crop it a lot because it was too big

[SMG]

I forgot to specify, at first I didn't think it was because of drivers, I had mint 21. I saw that some people were saying that Linux Mint 20.3 has less bugs, so i installed it, gave it a try.

The problem with using that as your criteria is your hardware is too new to be using the 5.4 kernel which is the LTS kernel with LM20.3. Your computer has an 11th-gen Intel processor. If you really want to use LM20.3, you would want to use the Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon (Edge) Edition which comes with the 5.13 kernel and would update to the 5.15 kernel when you run updates. Or you need to upgrade the kernel on your current install before doing anything else. LM21 Cinnamon comes with the 5.15 LTS kernel.

Having too old of a kernel installed is part of the problem with why you can not boot after installing the Nvidia driver. Your computer has dual-graphics, Intel and Nvidia. Normally, the system defaults to using Intel, but without an Intel graphics driver loading, you would get a black screen. It's possible the problem with the Nvidia driver the others had (although they had desktops which only had Nvidia--they did not have Intel) may also be happening on your system, but your issue is compounded by using the older kernel which does not have the Intel driver.

The screenshot you posted appears to indicate the system is trying to boot. That message relates to an audio driver. Using the 5.4 kernel may also be a problem for it.

You mention the problem happens after trying to install the Nvidia driver. Can you install Linux Mint 20.3 and get the system to boot so you can run updates (but not for Nvidia) and upgrade the kernel? If so, run all the updates (but not for Nvidia) and upgrade the kernel and reboot.

Instructions for upgrading to the 5.15 kernel:

• Open Update Manager.
• Select View > Linux Kernels and click Continue.
• Make sure 5.15 is selected on the left panel and then click the top-most option on the right panel. An "Install" button will appear.
• Install the kernel and then reboot for it to become active.

After you reboot, then take a Timeshift snapshot and then install an Nvidia driver which does not have "open" in its name. If after rebooting you get the black screen again, you can boot to a live session of Linux Mint with your install usb and use Timeshift on it to revert back to the snapshot and we will assess the situation to determine what might be the problem.

Or you can install Linux Mint 20.3 Edge Edition or Linux Mint 21 so you can boot normally with the install usb.

[CantingNebula86]

Thanks for the help, it boots up now.
Will mark this post as solved.