Off to a bad start with Mint Cinnamon (Solved)

[argusstuft]

I have made a bootable USB drive with Mint Cinnamon 1.93 installed that will not allow me to get past the home page before locking up and leaving the only alternative of powering off the computer. I came to this stage after trying twice before with Cinnamon 2.0, formatting the drive each time before starting over, and getting the same result. Reading here on the forum there was a suggestion that Nvidea drivers can affect the startup and it’s worth trying an earlier version of Mint to see if that works? In my case the answer is no!
Should I go back even further with Cinnamon or try something else entirely? Hopefully someone has already had this problem and had it solved?

My computer specs are:- Gigabyte Motherboard GA-970A-D3P
AMD FX 8120 8 core 3.10GHZ
Nvidea Gforce GTX650
16Gb Ram.
Win 10 Home.
Argus.

[Pjotr]

Try a bootable USB stick with the Edge iso of Mint 20.2:
http://mirror.cs.jmu.edu/pub/linuxmint/ ... t-edge.iso

[argusstuft]

Thanks for your reply but sorry to say your suggestion didn't work! I am using Pendrivelinux's tool to make the USB stick bootable and guess that it must be ok as booting to the home page would suggest it is? Would there be a better option?

[motoryzen]

Thanks for your reply but sorry to say your suggestion didn't work! I am using Pendrivelinux's tool to make the USB stick bootable and guess that it must be ok as booting to the home page would suggest it is? Would there be a better option?

If you're creating the Linux Mint installation media from within being booted from a Windows computer, I've never had a single problem from using Unetbootin

https://unetbootin.github.io/ obviously click the Windows download option if you're booted to Windows. It's an .exe but you can run it straight ( kind of the ease of use of an appimage file is in Linux world). I've used Unetbootin for at least 9 years and it has never failed me

format the thumb drive to fat32, then use Unetbootin to load that Linux Mint .iso file into it to make it bootable.

=== but if you're doing it from within another Linux based PC... that Usb Image writer program that is already installed OOTB on many distros has yet to fail me either.

[rene]

Poster will also want to specify what he or she means by "home page". A home page is a page on the web that a web browser visits on its startup and/or after pressing a "home button" somewhere. An OS is not a browser; does not have a home page.

[motoryzen]

rene makes a valid point here. On an inbetween note though with

I have made a bootable USB drive with Mint Cinnamon 1.93 installed that will not allow me to get past the home page before locking up

....

argusstuft.... I wonder if you meant your desktop and not a home page to whatever internet browser you normally use ( usually Firefox is the only one installed by default OOTB).

[zcot]

There are a number of "multiboot" usb creators that definitely do not work correctly for Mint. I'm not sure whether pendrivelinux is one or not.

I've seen numerous users talk about using Ventoy(a multiboot setup) and it works.

Aside from multiboot creators, Unetbootin as motoryzen mentions, and Etcher as mentioned in the Official Installation Guide, they work without a question.

There is a difference between these multiboot creators, that have to use some more complex specialty booting scenario to start the iso image, and simply imaging the iso directly, which should always work without issues.

[argusstuft]

Apologies for the incorrect use of "homepage" when I do mean desktop! Thank you rene! Also the comments of other posters are all welcome, I'm 75yrs of age and this is a learning curve for me. And I will try using Unetbootin and see if that gets the right result.

[argusstuft]

I'm sorry to have to report that there has been no complete success using Unetbootin to make my USB stick bootable with Linux Mint. While some minor changes to the lead-up like seeing the Linux Mint logo appear on the screen before desktop appears that's about it! Once desktop happens no movement of the cursor can take place and power-off is the only way to leave. It's beginning the smell like my system has a basic fault that needs to sought out and fixed?

[MrEen]

Have you tried using using a different USB port to plug the stick into? I'm not expecting it to help, but it's worth a shot.

[argusstuft]

Changeing USB ports has been tried but thanks for the suggestion. I have just tried downloading and using Etcher and for my trouble got a whole lot of crap and other software thrust at me as well as having AVG Browser installed without my consent. Won't be bothering with Etcher again!!!

[AndyMH]

You could try rufus to burn the iso:
viewtopic.php?p=2071766#p2071766

[motoryzen]

I'm sorry to have to report that there has been no complete success using Unetbootin to make my USB stick bootable with Linux Mint

Oddly, and I don't know why this is..at least from my experience, Unetbootin for the Linux version ..using it from within a Linux distro has never worked for me, but the Windows version from within Windows to create a bootable Linux Mint installation media has always worked. Yes....I agree it is weird and I have yet to figure it out.

[zcot]

I was curious so I checked, on a Win10 box. And just to mention it, we avoid clicking a search engine result when it says "ad" next to it.

But I typed etcher, and ended up at https://www.balena.io/etcher/ when I skipped the first 2 results that were ads, and the install was fine, clean, no alternate software. But I see some softonic link, and another one, -minefields for sure. We only trust the originator of some software and will go out of our way to simply go directly to the originators site, -because there's too many snake oil dealers out there.

my apologies for not throwing the link up directly at first.

[motoryzen]

I was curious so I checked, on a Win10 box. And just to mention it, we avoid clicking a search engine result when it says "ad" next to it.

But I typed etcher, and ended up at https://www.balena.io/etcher/ when I skipped the first 2 results that were ads, and the install was fine, clean, no alternate software. But I see some softonic link, and another one, -minefields for sure. We only trust the originator of some software and will go out of our way to simply go directly to the originators site, -because there's too many snake oil dealers out there.

my apologies for not throwing the link up directly at first.

Na.you're cool , and I'd follow the same cautious mentality also if I was in your shoes.

[sleeper12]

What about the Usb Image Writer in the Menu? It's always worked for me.

[motoryzen]

What about the Usb Image Writer in the Menu? It's always worked for me.

but if you're doing it from within another Linux based PC... that Usb Image writer program that is already installed OOTB on many distros has yet to fail me either.

I already mentioned that earlier

[sleeper12]

What about the Usb Image Writer in the Menu? It's always worked for me.

but if you're doing it from within another Linux based PC... that Usb Image writer program that is already installed OOTB on many distros has yet to fail me either.

I already mentioned that earlier

Ok, I missed it, great minds think alike.

[lonestar144]

Could be a hardware issue or a bad download of the iso. Re-download the iso and verify the checksums. I know this has been mentioned, but try another usb creator. I have recently started using Ventoy and it has worked perfectly on linux and windows 10. Depending on how old your hardware is, might have to try a less intensive Mint DE, like Mate or XFCE. I personally run XFCE and it works on a 20 yr old pc.

[zcot]

It's hard to say for sure without the info, but Argus left some hardware info in the first post. Just doing a basic search AT THE OLDEST that could be like 2015 hardware, but might be v2 or more and be a good candidate for the edge iso as already mentioned.

The Nvidia card seems like a good reason to point to the Release Notes about the "Solving freezes during the boot sequence" section, even if only for after a successful install, getting a black screen: https://linuxmint.com/rel_uma_cinnamon.php

But there's the "compatibility mode" as well, to start the live session installer media with.