[SOLVED] Linux Mint won't boot into a GUI Desktop Environment

[IonParticles]

Hello Linux Mint community,

Recently I have installed the x64 18.3 Cinnamon version of Linux Mint along with a dual boot of Windows 10 (just in case something goes wrong). The installation was successful and quick. I really enjoyed the Cinnamon desktop environment, yet discovered that when changing resolutions, the screen would freeze and I would have to reboot into Mint again. I then decided to try another stable desktop environment, KDE.

I used this guide to help me:
http://omgfoss.com/install-kde-plasma-u ... inux-mint/

Once I installed KDE, I logged out of Cinnamon and....... what follows is a black screen with a blinking underscore in the top left corner of the screen. I followed multiple guides, but none helped me. I accessed GRUB to edit boot configs with 'e', deleted 'quiet splash' , but that takes me to only the terminal mode of Linux Mint. Also, booting from the recovery mode presents the terminal as well. Pressing Ctrl-Alt-F8/F7 to switch to graphical mode has no effect. Trying to launch startx results in 'command not found'. I attempted to install mdm to no avail, yet interestingly, GUI appears after boot stating that "xserver failed to start". This was as far as I could go.

Summary: Installing a KDE desktop somehow prevented normal GUI boot, and I suspect Xorg was affected. I could not find any forum entries covering my situation, so I decided to make my own. If nothing else works, I guess I'll have to reinstall Linux mint. I will be happy to elaborate on details if I have to.

Here are my hardware specs:
CPU:Intel Core i7 8th gen
RAM:16 GB
GRAPHICS:Intel HD 620

[jimallyn]

It is not recommended to have more than one desktop environment installed. It used to be common when I started using Linux 16 years ago, but not any more. I don't know how to recover from that, but undoubtedly somebody will.

[Tomgin5]

Yes Jim. I have been noticing a lot of the newer laptops with EMMC SSD instead of SATA Mostly HP though Windows 10 was near to bricking them as they were approaching 1 year from date of manufacture. The license was expiring. it was absolutely impossible to get into bios If you tricked the laptop into accepting the live flash, the X360 would send you to the MS store to buy the app!!!! One I did get to boot from the live flash and when I began the install the screen went away.
In each case I found recent ASUS scraptops that had the HDD eraces with 4 GB ram for $24 redid the bios and loaded LM18.3 64 cinnamon with no problems. Sent the 1 year old computers in for recycle or rebuild

[IonParticles]

Jimallyn,
I see. I do understand that to simplify the Linux experience I need to set Mint as my primary OS, and I will gladly do so in this case. I reserved Windows in the case Wine does not support a particular program, and create bootable USB Drives when Linux is down.

Tomgin5,
I forgot to list my computer model:
Dell XPS 13 9360
Also, Linux Mint worked normally before I installed KDE

[Pierre]

the Cinnamon Desktop Environment is the primarily produced system, by the LinuxMint Team
and thus is designed to be used on most modern machines,
it also has the heaviest requirements as well.

the Kde system has less system requirements, and the Mate system has even less requirements, again.
but, your Dell machine should be able to run the Cinnamon system with ease.

the main issue will be that your Dell machine was designed to run the Windows 10 system,
and there may be issues in getting any Linux system to run on that hardware,
but that shouldn't be an impossible task to achieve.

you still can use multiple DEs on the one system, but you can't mix the two heaviest systems,
but rather use one heavier & one lighter grade system - - EG use Cinnamon & Mate together.

it may be easier, at this point, to re-install the Cinnamon system again,
whilst you still have the installation media available to use.

then post back on the forums, what issues that you are still having.

[IonParticles]

Pierre,
I suspected I'd have to reinstall Mint. I already have the /, swap, and /home partitions set, but can I salvage the data in /home? I have a Wine drive I would like to save, if possible, through the command line. Or could I reuse /home if the Linux Mint installer does not wipe the data?

[Pierre]

Yes - - you sure can salvage most of that existing system:
- use the 'something else' option
and point the installer to each existing partition, in turn
- use NoFormat on the existing /home ( uncheck the format box )
- use format on both the / root & /swap partitions ( leave format checked )

then click on next, to format & continue with the re-installation.

[IonParticles]

Pierre,
I have now reinstalled Linux Mint with the same installation media I used to install Mint the first time. It was a success, I was able to boot into the GUI and login screen. I logged into Cinnamon, reinstalled software, and tested everything out. Here are the results:
Surprisingly, resizing the screen to a higher resolution does not freeze the screen anymore. Yes!
......at the cost of sound support with Wine. I was no longer able to hear sound from Wine, claiming that another app was using sound hardware. I believe a quick reboot or Wine reconfiguring should fix that.
That's all I have so far, the rest seems to work the same.
Thanks all for the suggestions.

[Caltrop]

had this happen several times
things were working, now they are not
in fact it just happened before I posted this - GAACCCK...
especially after being on the Internet, I suspect some kind of attack or file corruption
whatever, some file somewhere got messed up

how I fix:
boot to your Live CD so you can look at everything
find your primary linux drive, sda3, sda6, whatever
open a terminal & run 'fsck /dev/whatever'
answer fsck questions
restart

or if the system boots to the terminal & you know your primary drive
I run 'fsck /dev/sda6'
answer all the questions
turn off the system (hold the power button until off) then turn it back on
I have yet to figure out how to boot from the terminal
I am not sure it will boot right anyway
now I am back up & posting...

[Chadley B]

Hi all, just wanted to jump in to this conversation, late I know.
So yesterday my Linux Mint 18 started doing this same thing and the only reason I can think of is that I installed Java script and may have messed around with the desktop environment. All I can offer at this stage is that my login doesn't work even when I try ctrl+alt+F2 with my username and password. Any tips or diagnosis appreciated.

[hcentaur13]

Linux Mint is a distribution that spoends all time of thyre developers to make the distribution better. Mit sis not and will not able to switch the GUI! There are multiple ISOs with different GUIs like cinnamon, MATA and xfce. When you istalls multiple GUIs none of them will be right funkctional anymore. There are other distibutions who spend a significant amount od time of theyr developers only for havbing the possibility to run multipe different GUIs. Mint says it is not worth to spend time for this.

Install Mint cinnamon when you likes it, Mint xfce or mate when you likes them more but none of them together. It will simply not work. Use another distribution if you can't live without that feature!

[Sharmanking]

fsck /dev/sda1, done this in terminal and it works for me. Thanks!

or if the system boots to the terminal & you know your primary drive
I run 'fsck /dev/sda6'
answer all the questions
turn off the system (hold the power button until off) then turn it back on
I have yet to figure out how to boot from the terminal
I am not sure it will boot right anyway
now I am back up & posting...