Cinnamon hangs, I can only use the terminal

[marilea]

I have been looking through possible solutions for this. I installed Mint 17. The login screen is smaller than my monitor, but I can login. The only desktop that responds (the rest are black screen) is Cinnamon.
It hangs. I get nothing but a splash screen. Sometimes if I am lucky, a program will pop up after a few minutes, but it freezes.
Based on what I read, it might have something to do with my display settings.
No gui interfaces work. So I need to know how to check the display, possibly rerun hardware setup, all from the command line. I can get to the terminal (ctrl-alt-F1)

It's a zbox with an intel integrated video. That's all I know off the top of my head.

Or could I do a repair install?

[karlchen]

Hello, marilea.

Zotac ZBox alone is a bit too vague. There are a few different mini computers that are called ZBox.
Actually, I have got one at home: Intel Atom QuadCore, 1.7 GB of RAM, 256 MB dedicated VRAM, Nivdia ION graphics adapter, Sata II controller with a 160 GB HDD, cannot recall all the other technical specifcations.
Anyway, this ZBox runs Linux Mint 17 32-bit Cinnamon fine without any display problems. I know I am using the nouveau driver, because it is the only system where I use nouveau for the NVidia graphics card.
So, in fact, it may be necessary to get the screen output generated by the terminal command

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inxi -Fxz

This will reveal the missing technical details.

Kind regards,
Karl
--
P.S.:
Here is the latest "inxi -Fxz" report which I created on and posted from my Zotac. It was created on Mint 16 32-bit still, which like Mint 17 32-bit, too, was installed as Mint 32-bit Cinnamon and xfce was added later on. If I do not forget, I may add a recent "inxi" report tonight, just so there is something to compare to.

[marilea]

Ran what you suggested. Looks like the driver never loaded. How do I check to see if it's on the system, then download it.

[karlchen]

Hello, marilea.

Can we please get the screen output of

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inxi -Fxz

Means could you please post it here. (Might have expressed this more clearly in the previous post already.) This will also show whether the needed intel graphics driver gets loaded or not.

Karl

[marilea]

How would I do that since I have to use my phone to post in the forum

[karlchen]

Hello, marilea.

Oops. This will be tricky. Because writing the output of "inxi -Fxz" to a file is simple. E.g.

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inxi -Fxz > ~/inxireport.txt

Yet, I cannot tell you how you could transfer the file to your phone and post it here.

Therefore here is a different idea. Just second best. Because it will depend on your skills as a smart phone photographer:
Launch

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inxi -Fxz

on your Mint system. Then use your smart phone to take a photograph of the terminal window with the inxi output in it.
Provided you manage to take a photograph on which the output is readable you might upload the photograph to imgur.com e.g. and post the link here.

Kind regards,
Karl

[karlchen]

Here is my full inxi report

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karl@unimatrix0 ~ $ inxi -Fx
System:    Host: unimatrix0 Kernel: 3.13.0-34-generic i686 (32 bit, gcc: 4.8.2) 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.11.6 (Gtk 2.24.23) Distro: Linux Mint 17 Qiana
Machine:   Mobo: N/A model: N/A Bios: American Megatrends version: 080015 date: 10/09/2009
CPU:       Dual core Intel Atom CPU 330 (-HT-MCP-) cache: 512 KB flags: (lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 ssse3) bmips: 6400.22 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 1600.056 MHz 2: 1600.056 MHz 3: 1600.056 MHz 4: 1600.056 MHz
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA ION VGA bus-ID: 03:00.0 
           X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: nouveau (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1280x1024@60.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on NVAC GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card: NVIDIA MCP79 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:08.0 
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.13.0-34-generic
Network:   Card-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) driver: ath9k bus-ID: 04:00.0
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: 00:25:d3:eb:5e:c8
           Card-2: NVIDIA MCP79 Ethernet driver: forcedeth port: d080 bus-ID: 00:0a.0
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: 00:01:2e:2b:26:c2
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 160.0GB (4.3% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: SAMSUNG_HM160HI size: 160.0GB 
Partition: ID: / size: 48G used: 6.4G (15%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 5.42GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap 
RAID:      No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 84.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 61.0 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A 
Info:      Processes: 177 Uptime: 1:16 Memory: 380.7/1760.3MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.2 
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.11) inxi: 1.9.17 
karl@unimatrix0 ~ $

The section which will be of special interest is this one in the middle:

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Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA ION VGA bus-ID: 03:00.0 
           X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: nouveau (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1280x1024@60.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on NVAC GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3 Direct Rendering: Yes

The Graphics section. Should be 3 lines.
Your system will not use nouveau. It should use intel instead. (nouveau is for NVidia cards only.)

[marilea]

I didn't type all the info, hope this is enough
Kernel: 3.13.0-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.2)
Console: tty 1
Distro: Linux Mint 17 Qiana
Machine: Zotac
Model: ZBOXSD-ID12/ID13
Version: XX
Bios: American Megatrends
Version: 080016
date: 12/23/2010
Dual core: Intel Atom CPU D525 (-HT-MCP-)
cache 512 KB
flags (lm nc sse sse2 sse3 sse4)
bmips 7182.38
Clock Speeds: 1795.599 MHz
Graphics Card: Intel Atom Processor D4xx/D5xx/N4xx/N5xx Intergrated Graphics Card
Bus-ID 00:02.0
X.org 1.15.1
drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev, vesa)
tty size 160x45
Advanced Data N/A out of X

I'll try the photo if this doesn't work

[karlchen]

I seem to be somewhat slow in the uptake today.
The first thing to try is to make your machine boot to a usable GUI. Therefore I suggest to try xenopeek's advice here: Solve boot problems with AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards
Though your graphics chips is an Intel and neither NVidia, nor AMD/ATI, adding "nomodeset" in the Grub menu at boot time might do the trick nonetheless.

[karlchen]

Hi, ubuntunewser.

As long as you cannot boot to a usable GUI, inxi will not be able to give any more details than you typed in your post, in particular not about the graphics card.
So no need to take photograph.

In case xenopeek's nomodeset advice should not give you a usable GUI, how about booting the live system which you used to install Linux Mint 17 from? It must have worked. I.e. it should be possible to boot to the live system (test Linux Mint) and run "inxi -Fxz" from there.

In the meantime I will try to find some reports on problems affecting recent Intel graphics cards and Ubuntu 14.04/Linux Mint 17. There have been a few. (Do not know whether Intel did something to their cards, or whether the open-source Intel driver package experienced a regression. Intel cards used to work out of the box in the past.)

Karl

[marilea]

I did make some headway.
I had to edit grub, so I could get the menu up. Then I ran it in recovery. That helped with the login screen not being correct.
I used these commands in grub so I could access it.

GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=false

I can get to the desktop now. It is running in software rendering mode now. Because it cannot find the drivers.

EDIT I can only get to the desktop, by running recover, but its a step in the right direction.

[marilea]

I tried a Linux Mint 17 Live and the latest Ubuntu. Still having the same issues.
I tried install the intel drivers, intel does not recognize the distros.
So looks like I have to wait for updated drivers or for someone to come up with a workaround.