Update Mint 15: No menu bar, no consoles, all broken?!?

JZL240I-U · 10-29-2013, 09:55 AM

I ran an update yesterday evening. Now the menu at the lower edge is gone. The buttons are there but hidden, i.e. they get dark grey under the mouse cursor. Clicking on them shows transparent popups which don't work.

I can't switch to console (Alt / Ctrl / Fn) and have to restart by resorting to (Alt / Ctrl / Del).

I renamed /home/<user>/.cinnamon, /home/<user>/.gnome2 and /home/<user>/.gnome2-private to no avail. Any ideas would be appreciated.

yooy · 10-30-2013, 07:57 PM

how did you upgrade mint?
usually it takes fresh install to upgrade mint to newer version..

try installing dock so that you can work, or enter in terminal something like "gnome-panel&"

JZL240I-U · 10-31-2013, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yooy

how did you upgrade mint?
usually it takes fresh install to upgrade mint to newer version..

I updated the current version (Olivia / Mint15). That is not meant as an upgrade to the yet to be released version 16

.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yooy

try installing dock so that you can work, or enter in terminal something like "gnome-panel&"

There is no working mint anymore. This is a multi-boot machine so I can at most mount mint's "/" and edit config files as necessary.

andrewthomas · 10-31-2013, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JZL240I-U

I updated the current version (Olivia / Mint15). That is not meant as an upgrade to the yet to be released version 16

.

There is no working mint anymore. This is a multi-boot machine so I can at most mount mint's "/" and edit config files as necessary.

Chroot into your Mint and fix it.

JZL240I-U · 10-31-2013, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewthomas

Chroot into your Mint and fix it.

How?

andrewthomas · 10-31-2013, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JZL240I-U

How?

Assuming your mint installation is at /dev/sdc1 then:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
 mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/
 mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
 mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
 mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
 mount --bind /dev/pts /mnt/dev/pts
 mount -o bind /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/etc/resolv.conf
 chroot /mnt/ /bin/bash
# this is where you can do all kinds of useful stuff. Like fix your broken system.
 umount /mnt/etc/resolv.conf
 umount /mnt/dev/pts
 umount /mnt/sys
 umount /mnt/proc
 umount /mnt/dev
 umount /mnt

JZL240I-U · 11-01-2013, 02:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewthomas

Code:

...{useful information how to chroot}
# this is where you can do all kinds of useful stuff. Like fix your broken system.
...{useful information how to end chroot}

What I meant is how do I fix the system? I have no idea where to even only begin...

Thanks for your help.

andrewthomas · 11-01-2013, 04:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JZL240I-U

What I meant is how do I fix the system? I have no idea where to even only begin...

Thanks for your help.

Ok. Have you tried to select the recovery option(or whatever they are calling it these days) from your grub2 menu(probably the second entry?)
That should boot you into a root shell.

Or from the chroot.

Code:

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

Copy and paste the output of the upgrade command you are still having problems

JZL240I-U · 11-01-2013, 04:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewthomas

Ok. Have you tried to select the recovery option(or whatever they are calling it these days) from your grub2 menu(probably the second entry?).

Yes, some automatic repair then started. It didn't help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewthomas

...That should boot you into a root shell.

I did not chose a shell since I would not know what to do then.

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewthomas

Or from the chroot.

Code:

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

Copy and paste the output of the upgrade command you are still having problems

I'm living in the country and only have a mobile connection -- which I only know how to start from the GUI -- which does not work anymore...

Looks hopeless, maybe I should re-install.

andrewthomas · 11-01-2013, 05:20 AM

If you can't figure out how to fix it from a root shell, then you certainly would be best off re-installing. Although, it doesn't hurt to try if you are going to reinstall anyway. You just may learn something.