First, thanks again for posting MrMazda.... I'm in the middle of a big house project so I'm not online as much as usual.

All of the above is Greek to me... I would expect a desktop session to be like a server session or a mount session or a boot session or any "turn the machine on" session.

I agree...... the stable shell should be exactly what I booted into. In this environment (if correctly coded) should allow me to change my screen resolution and other settings persistently without 2 weeks of extra reading.

I highly doubt I can configure anything on this OS without years of reading and learning the syntax...... I don't have permission to do jack right now.

BTW... do you know how I can exit the X server in a non brutal way?

I will try your "restart" suggestion and see what happens...

Wolf

I am a new comer from the MS Windows OS's.... I guess you never ran any of them?

In the Windows world, you can open a File Manager, double click on a file and it will execute or open for display in the associated program.

Of course..... nothing is perfect. :b

booted into Mint.... opened terminal and typed "sudo service lightdm restart"

Machine rebooted but skipped dual boot menu and just restarted Mint.

Tried running the nVidia package installer .run file.... "You need to exit the X server".


I tried....

In Mint, as in most distros, getting into a desktop session may or may not be a two step process. It depends on whether automatic login is enabled, which when enabled makes the process emulate the way Windows works. Being enabled can cause extra work when troubleshooting after something goes wrong with a desktop session. It's best not to use automatic login until after getting familiar with the login workflow and using a shell session. The preferred process is: 1-login, which results in; 2-desktop session. #1 in Mint is via the LightDM display manager. It's also possible to login from a Ctrl-Alt-Fn text mode prompt, then start an X session via the startx command. The two step process additionally allows easy selection of an alternate desktop session type.

The distro's developers are not in position to test everything. In particular they are prevented from including up-to-date versions of proprietary driver software in any release. Use of NVidia drivers complicates life with a Linux PC, narrowing the user base of those willing and able to troubleshoot problems that result from not sticking to FOSS software that is part of the distribution as QA tested. IMO, installing a tainting driver should be done only after ensuring everything else is working properly, including ensuring all competent FOSS DDX are unsatisfactory. For NVidia GPUs, this means both nouveau (not to be confused with the nouveau kernel driver) and modesetting.

What's stopping you from using sudo or su - to do what needs doing? If you want to you can enable a root user on your Mint installation:As root you are free to fix or break your installation without inhibition.

The normal way is to first log out of the desktop session via a right click on the desktop, clicking on a power switch icon, or via a main menu selection. Once logged out, Ctrl-Alt-Fn, login, execute service lightdm stop or systemctl isolate multi-user.service.

Just another need for using a (text-mode) session started after Ctrl-Alt-Fn. You don't have to stop the server to "exit" it. Linux is a multiuser/multitasking OS.

When I setup Mint I did choose automatic login. I thought this would grant me "administrator" status such as in Windows OS's. Unfortunately however, I'm still constantly prompted for passwords at many instances.

I'm so new to Linux that I'm probably making several mistakes or wrong choices out of ignorance. Am I now to understand that the Terminal command window is not all powerful and that there are other (Ctrl+Alt+Fn) screens I need to access to carry out other commands? Why so many?

Your first post on this thread mentioned TDE desktop, FOSS, xandr, and a few other terms I assumed must be associated with 3rd party software. If however these are native to Linux and the most reliable, why does the initial Update cycle D/L and install nVidia drivers?

I had tried this which other sources also suggested. After opening Terminal and completing the "sudo passwd root" entry I then opened my File Manager and still saw menu choices greyed out, and files open as Read Only. So trying to change my user privileges through Terminal were unsuccessful.

I will attempt this once I complete this post and let you know what happened.

While reading many sources it's a bit surprising how much variety there is among Linux users as to a cure for several topics. Just in this thread for example, I've got Ondoho suggesting I need to install the proprietary nVidia driver package, then you post a different fix somehow using FOSS, while Mturn claims I need to "build the driver" using a bash command...

Can you appreciate how a new user might be a bit confused?

Thanks for you help...
Wolf

My familiarity with Mint is low. I use it only for testing, QA and generic support. I cannot address whether or why you are experiencing this. You can minimize need for superuser passwords by creating a root user and performing sysadmin activity logged in as root, and/or as using su - instead of sudo.

Yes. Linux distros are derivations of multiuser/multitasking Unixish operating systems created several decades ago. They remain multiuser/multitasking. The additional logical terminals remain as tools from that heritage. For many users, largely those more efficient with keyboard than mouse, but also for various repair needed situations, they are indispensable.

Tradition based in part on the number of function keys on common keyboards. You can configure more or fewer if desired.

You should be doing more web searches and making fewer assumptions, e.g. for F.O.S.S., which you are using when booted to Mint. TDE is both 3rd party and FOSS. Xrandr is a standard Xorg tool.

If it was up to me, such urging people to taint their systems wouldn't be happening. This looks like one of those trying to please most of the people most of the time situations, where the minority turns out to be quite substantial, as in causes a lot of new people to seek interactive help. This particular situation tends to affect people who are more affluent or for other reasons spend more for their laptop or PC than average and thus get a discrete GPU instead of or in addition to a less expensive GPU incorporated into the chipset or CPU, aka AMD or NVidia graphics instead of solely Intel graphics.

Here again I can't really help much. I don't use any GUI file managers. I'm an OFM user.

Sudo only works for one command at a time. After you set the root password, you were back to being an ordinary user until such time as you logged in as root, used su -, or again used sudo.

Different ways for doing many things is a FOSS feature, one of the reasons why so many different DEs and distros exist. That these various contexts exists is one reason why under under usernames at left here you'll typically see one or more distro names, intended to provide a bit of guidance on the the amount of confidence you might place on any particular writer's possible competence on the subject matter of the thread.

Absolutely.

You're welcome. You can show appreciation by clicking the Yes links on helpful posts.

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My latest effort to replace the nVidia driver and stop the panning effect was a flop...

Although I'm very familiar with the MS-Dos command line syntax, I quickly learned Linux/Unix is much different, and had to look up some tutorials on Linux syntax.

Booted into Linux GUI and started a Ctrl+Alt+F1 shell. Could not find the "Downloads" directory where I had stashed the nVidia.run file for some time. Took me a while to figure out that logging in as "root" was not helpful. I don't recall reading this in either tutorial I went through, but apparently even logging in as "root" does not allow even seeing everything on your HDD. Weird!

Eventually logged in as "user/password" and made it to the correct directory. Ran "sudo service lightdm stop" followed by "sh nVidia.run" and the setup file started uncompressing. Hit OK at license agreement, then was presented with "The pre-install script failed to run... Do you wish to proceed". I chose YES. Then there was another Q related to merging/building some (pkge?) kernel. (none of this is mentioned by nVidia install notes).

Long story short I ran the install twice since it failed the first time. Second time reported success but nothing at all is different. Driver Mgr. still says "no proprietary drivers in use". Panning still happens after every re boot.

Time to do some reading on a FOSS alternative... :*(

It has no such limitation. First, I recommend avoiding use of the F1 shell. Use any, or all, of F2-F5 instead. F1 sometimes has special characteristics that can perplex. Filenames that start with . are considered "hidden", so won't factor into ordinary operations. If you learn to navigate with mc you'll be presented all files in its panes.

You and others have inspired me to do much more searching and reading MrMazda... and I'm not complaining.

At the moment, I went back to the highest resolution on my display (which is the only one that doesn't have the panning effect), and I've resized fonts and icons to assist my eyesight, but this is a patch that doesn't help with all applications. At this point, I'm interested in pursuing the Trinity Desktop you had suggested in a previous post if you can assist me with this.

Unfortunately, the Trinity website does not offer a package for Linux Mint, and typing "Mint" in the search box returns zero results. Since Mint is based on Ubuntu, would that be the version I should spend time on?

Like most computer users, I'm more comfortable managing files and directories via a GUI with a mouse than strictly the keyboard. I can open "extended privileges" file manager at the terminal with "sudo nemo", but that app doesn't list other devices.

I would much rather know how to enable full permissions on the file manager program that was installed with Mint 19.2.

MrMazda... please tell me your thoughts on this method.

https://snapcraft.io/install/trinity-client/mint

Thanks,
Wolf

That's not something I'd ever encountered before. I doesn't look related to TDE at all.

I really don't know what to suggest. What is your pre-Mint history, WinXP only? For how long? Why did you choose Mint? How long ago? Optimal would be to pick a distro TDE supports directly rather than trying to patch it into a derivation (Ubuntu) of a derivation (Debian). Since Mint 19.x is based upon Ubuntu 18.04, TDE at least in theory should run on Mint (paraphrased response on IRC from TDE head developer). You could try with the anticipation of possibly switching distros to eliminate kinks, like that you found that precipitated this thread.

TDE doesn't have a forum that I know anything about, but its mailing list and IRC people are helpful and encouraging.

My primary distro has been openSUSE since before its inception as a derivation of SuSE, whose v8.0 I started with in 2003. All my Debian installations use TDE semi-exclusively (IceWM is also installed, but only as a test yardstick). All my currently supported Ubuntus use TDE as well.

The first computer I worked with was over 50 years ago... an IBM desktop of sorts which we programmed using Cobal or Fortran and entered the program on the manilla 3x8's which you coloured all the rows of bytes with your #2 pencil and then entered them into a card reader... remember that?

I was thinking about a career in programming, but after looking at the actual jobs and duties out there at the time (1974?), I ended up instead going into the machinist trade and left computing behind... until my kids were born. I realized computers were going to be everywhere soon and the boys should get their hands on them so I put a 386 machine in the house with DOS 5 and Win 3.1 on top of that.

Anyway... upgraded Windows versions to XP and beyond, but always went back to XP... It's the most stable and familiar to me and allows me to do all I need... until it crashes. (Windows OS's always crash).

So when my employer told me he used only Unix on his business machines, and then the Inspector at work suggested Linux Mint as a good way to get your feet wet with Linux while still in a Windows like environment, I D/L and played with Mint 19.1 (on a diff machine) about 2 years ago at most.

Right off I liked Mint and found I could do things (access Windows System files) that I was not able to inside of Windows... so I want to keep some version of Linux installed for that reason. Also, if Linux pans out to be much more stable and not needing the re-install Windows often does, all the better. I really haven't spent much time with it though.

On the previous install of Mint, I don't recall having any display issues like I do now, but this is a diff machine and a smaller screen. Sure is a lot of hassle just to get a display set and persistent as I would like.

ImWolf, I just tried to PM a response. It got lost in the ether. Please try to PM me.

I ran Windows 1.0. For an afternoon. Until I got done laughing at it. Actually, I've used them all -- except Win8 -- but, lately? Only under duress. (Unless I'm allowed to install Cygwin/X.)

I meant double clicking on a ".run" file in a Linux file manager. I'd be a little surprised if some action has been defined for files with that extension.