<SOLVED>LM20 Cinnamon freezes

[chris_m]

Hello, I've just installed LM20 cinnammon into a new(freshly formatted) hdd drive and it's my first time trying/installing/using linux, so i'm a total newbie.

So here i am, first boot into the system, and i was going through the "welcome" window, while also listening to music from youtube. After like 2 minutes my mouse
and keyboard froze but the music was still playing. So i kept hard-rebooting for more than 50 times while trying stuff and fixes that i found here but nothing worked so far. I have disabled the effects from (Menu-Preferences-Effects), tried installing the latest drivers for my card(as i suspect it's a GPU problem) both manually with the following command i found on a similar question:

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sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall

which did nothing for me, i mean there was no output,
and automatically with the driver manager which did something although i'm not sure what, cause the problem still persists.

I would be grateful if someone could help me get through this starting problem.
I also saw that in a lot of this type of questions you guys want to see the output of the command:

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inxi -Fxz

so here it is:

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System:    Kernel: 5.4.0-26-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.6.6 
           Distro: Linux Mint 20 Ulyana base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: Intel model: DB85FL v: AAG89861-203 serial: <filter> BIOS: Intel 
           v: FLB8510H.86A.0019.2013.0606.1538 date: 06/06/2013 
CPU:       Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i5-4570 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Haswell rev: 3 L2 cache: 6144 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 25541 
           Speed: 2195 MHz min/max: 800/3600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2195 2: 2195 3: 2195 4: 2195 
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GK106 [GeForce GTX 660] vendor: Gigabyte driver: nouveau v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1440x900~60Hz, 1680x1050~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: NVE6 v: 4.3 Mesa 20.0.4 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GK106 HDMI Audio vendor: Gigabyte driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.1 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-26-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Ethernet I217-V driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k port: f040 bus ID: 00:19.0 
           IF: eno1 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Ralink RT5370 Wireless Adapter type: USB driver: rt2800usb bus ID: 3-11:8 
           IF: wlxa0f3c10bd623 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 6.12 GiB (1.3%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD5000AZRX-00A8LB0 size: 465.76 GiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 47.81 GiB used: 6.12 GiB (12.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 9.77 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8 C mobo: 27.8 C gpu: nouveau temp: 37 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: nouveau fan: 1110 
Info:      Processes: 210 Uptime: 31m Memory: 7.57 GiB used: 1.12 GiB (14.8%) Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 
           Shell: bash v: 5.0.16 inxi: 3.0.38

I hope the info are sufficient for a diagnosis.
Thank you in advance,
Chris.

[mikaelrask]

hey chris_m i'm no expert here but if you open up the driver manger in the start menu does i say you using the nvidia driver/or the open source on? according the nvidia homepage you need atlest version 388 https://www.nvidia.com/download/driverR ... px/125896/ for your NVIDIA GK106 [GeForce GTX 660] second is the iso you downloaded vertifyed before put on the usb before installing it? https://linuxmint.com/verify.php.

[chris_m]

hello there and thank you for your answer!

So in driver manager i see nothing. It says "Your computer does not need any additional drivers" and at the bottom left says "No proprietary drivers are in use".
Although i can see from the inxi command output that in Graphics says driver: nouveau which i think is the open-source one.

As for the .iso i have both verified and authenticity checked it, following the Linux mint guide i found.

Something else i find concerning is that in the update manager - view - Linux Kernels says "You are currently using the following kernel: 5.4.0-26-generic (Unsupported)". And i also can't see any other kernel versions(I don't even know if should, just saying).

[Larry78723]

Hey Chris - Welcome to Linux Mint and to the forums. Right after installing you should have run the Update Manager, did you? It should have installed a later version of the kernal, which is supported. It should also update the Driver Manager so you might see a new driver for your Nvidia card.

[chris_m]

Hello to you too sir,

I think i did run the update manager from the start but i saw nothing to do so i closed it. Now my update manager looks like this(attached screenshot).
I says my system is up to date, but if you say it's not then there's definitely a problem, right?

[Larry78723]

The way to tell for sure is to open a terminal (Ctrl-Alt-T), make sure it is open maximized, and run the following command:

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sudo apt update

Highlight the results, copy them (ctrl-shift-c) and paste (ctrl-v) them in your response.

[SMG]

Hello to you too sir,

I think i did run the update manager from the start but i saw nothing to do so i closed it. Now my update manager looks like this(attached screenshot).
I says my system is up to date, but if you say it's not then there's definitely a problem, right?

Yes, there is definitely a problem. Not only has the kernel been updated, but so has Cinnamon and muffin and a lot of other things. If I recall correctly, I think I had to update Update Manager first after I installed LM20. Update Manager should be version 5.6.9.

Also, the version of the Nvidia driver you will want to install is the 450 Driver. That is the latest for your card.

[chris_m]

This is eveything on the cmd window:

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chris@chris-desktop:~$ sudo apt update
[sudo] password for chris:          
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.
chris@chris-desktop:~$ 

Thank you so all so much for your interest and time. I hope i don't bore you with basic stuff, but this is all very new to me and kinda confusing.

[Larry78723]

Now, try

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sudo apt upgrade

[chris_m]

These are the new results:

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chris@chris-desktop:~$ sudo apt upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
chris@chris-desktop:~$ 

[Larry78723]

Did you verify the iso before you burned it to your USB? (Directions at https://linuxmint.com/verify.php) If not, please do that before we go any further.

[chris_m]

UPDATE!!
SOLVED?!

Sooo, a lot of things happened during this last hour.

While i was waiting for a reply i tinkered with the Update Manager. I went to Edit - Software Sources and changed both Main(ulyana) and Base(focal) Mirrors
to Greek ones, since i am from Greece and this should increase my data transfer rates, right?
But the interesting part is that when i got back to the Update Manager and hit refresh... boom... 123 available packages and procceded to install them.
During the installation the system crashed several times, but the music still playing on the background indicated that it was the video card again so it didn't bother me. After every reboot the update seemed to pick up the process where it left it, which was awesome.
After the installation i went to the driver manager and finally found the nvidia driver waiting to be installed. Did that, rebooted the system and since then the computer runs real smooth.

Here is a new system overview:

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System:    Kernel: 5.4.0-52-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.6.7 wm: muffin 4.6.3 
           dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 20 Ulyana base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: Intel model: DB85FL v: AAG89861-203 serial: <filter> BIOS: Intel 
           v: FLB8510H.86A.0019.2013.0606.1538 date: 06/06/2013 
CPU:       Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i5-4570 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Haswell rev: 3 L2 cache: 6144 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 25541 
           Speed: 915 MHz min/max: 800/3600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1479 2: 1594 3: 1581 4: 1369 
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GK106 [GeForce GTX 660] vendor: Gigabyte driver: nvidia v: 450.80.02 bus ID: 01:00.0 
           chip ID: 10de:11c0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: nvidia unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,nouveau,vesa 
           resolution: 1440x900~60Hz, 1680x1050~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 660/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 450.80.02 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 
           chip ID: 8086:8c20 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GK106 HDMI Audio vendor: Gigabyte driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.1 
           chip ID: 10de:0e0b 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-52-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Ethernet I217-V driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k port: f040 bus ID: 00:19.0 chip ID: 8086:153b 
           IF: eno1 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Ralink RT5370 Wireless Adapter type: USB driver: rt2800usb bus ID: 3-11:4 chip ID: 148f:5370 
           serial: <filter> 
           IF: wlxa0f3c10bd623 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 9.24 GiB (2.0%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD5000AZRX-00A8LB0 size: 465.76 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> 
           rev: 1A01 scheme: GPT 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 47.81 GiB used: 9.24 GiB (19.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 9.77 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 37.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia temp: 34 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: nvidia fan: 35% 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
           1: deb http://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/mirrors/linux/linuxmint/packages ulyana main upstream import backport
           2: deb http://ubuntu.otenet.gr focal main restricted universe multiverse
           3: deb http://ubuntu.otenet.gr focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
           4: deb http://ubuntu.otenet.gr 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: 236 Uptime: 25m Memory: 7.57 GiB used: 1.85 GiB (24.4%) Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: 
           gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash v: 5.0.17 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.38 

Is there anything else i need to do to make sure i don't get this problem any more, or is there anything wrong with the new system overview that i need to check?
Also is that changing software sources thing a feature i should know, or a bug?

Thank you all for you help and your time,
A happy newbie,
Chris.

[Larry78723]

Hey Chris - I'm glad everything has worked out for you. You did the right thing in switching to a local mirror for both, it can be much faster to keep things updated. The system overview looks fine.

Enjoy your new Linux Mint and don't hesitate to come back and ask any questions you might have in the future.

[phoinx]

(...)
While i was waiting for a reply i tinkered with the Update Manager. I went to Edit - Software Sources and changed both Main(ulyana) and Base(focal) Mirrors
(...)

Thank you a lot!
My problem was the Driver Manager window "empty".
Things that I did (in that order) that solved the problem for me:

• sudo apt-add-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa && apt update
• changing the Software Sources

EDIT: Btw, I've had this issue on 2 OSes - it worked on my LM20 (Cinnamon, installed on internal SSD), but not on LM19.2 (Cinnamon, on external SSD, connected via USB). Still trying to fix it.