When I rebooted the machine, it got as far as the Nvidia splash screen and then got stuck in an 'eternal loop'. The display just alternated between a blank screen and the Nvidia splash screen.
Fortunately, I was able to login over the network from another computer. Here is what I did:
1. After checking in /var/log/apt , I uninstalled the updates to Virtual Box and Jenkins. However, this had no effect on the 'infinite loop' behaviour.
2. After doing some digging on the internet, I uninstalled the Nvidia driver:
# dpkg -l | grep -i nvidia
# sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-*
I then rebooted the machine. This cured the 'infinite loop' problem but left me with a blank screen.
3. I tried installing the 'noveau' drivers for Nvidia:
# sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
# sudo apt-get install nouveau-firmware
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
I then rebooted but it did not make the situation any better.
4. After doing some more research, I decided to remove the Virtual Box guest additions:
# sudo apt-get remove --purge virtualbox*
Now the machine boots up into "Software Rendering Mode", so I have at least made some progress
Now for the system details:
Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.3 (64-bit)
# inxi -Gx
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA G96M [GeForce GT 120M] bus-ID: 02:00.0
Display Server: N/A drivers: fbdev (unloaded: vesa) FAILED: nouveau
tty size: 192x51 Advanced Data: N/A out of X
CPU~Dual core Pentium T4200 (-MCP-) speed~2000 MHz (max) Kernel~4.10.0-42-generic x86_64 Up~1:32 Mem~1893.3/3949.7MB
As you can see, it's quite an old machine. However, it has been running Linux Mint very well for the last year.
How can I get back to the original working state of the machine, prior to the Virtual Box upgrade?
I have already tried:
# sudo ubuntu-drivers list
# sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall
However, this just landed my back in the 'inifinite loop' situation again.
This is what I see in the output of journalctl:
Mar 26 21:58:10 Asus-laptop systemd-modules-load[363]: Failed to insert 'nouveau': No such device
Mar 26 21:58:10 Asus-laptop systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Mar 26 21:58:10 Asus-laptop systemd[1]: Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.
Mar 26 21:58:10 Asus-laptop systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Unit entered failed state.
Mar 26 21:58:10 Asus-laptop systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Perhaps I should try blacklisting Nouveau, as suggested in this post:
https://old.nixaid.com/nvidia-ubuntu/
I'm pretty sure that it has something to do with the kernel modules but graphics is not my strong point. So any help you can give would be much appreciated.
Regards,
Bill