My recent install of Linux Mint Cinnamon has a frozen desk top (after working fine for several days). While I was mostly reading and trying a command or two on terminal I noticed Update Manager had over 900 MB of updates to be done. I wasn't sure if was safe to do but I gave it the go ahead and continued my exploring. Shortly after that the screen froze. The mouse still moves around but I have left it at that. I didn't try any of the above (old) recommendations. I was wondering if the updates might be occurring in the background. I plan to leave it going overnight but was wondering if anyone could respond.

I don't know how frequent frozen screens occur in Linux but I remember seeing a lot of blue screens over the years. So I was wondering if there are any current recommendations on the original question posted here?

Thanks,
Charlie

cant say much for Mint, but from time to time my Gnomeshell will lockup too. typically at start. a simple way around it is to just restart the GUI.

either ctrl+alt+backspace, or alt+tab to get to a terminal, log in as root or use sudo, and type the following two commands:

that will reset your GUI.

also from the terminal you can run top and if you have it installed you could also run htop then look and see if apt is running. i supposed you could also use to check.

dont be afraid to get away from the GUI. the terminal is your friend.

Ctrl+Alt+F1 ( 2 3 .. 6 )
to get to a console

once logged in try
no need for root

get back to X with Ctrl+Alt+F7 ( might be 8 or 9 )

^^ advantage, if it works you lose no work.


I've only had problems when messing about with modesetting on the console, then switching back to X
not noticed anything when I've not been messing about
BUT, my cinnamon is a very different beast to yours.. compiled from git on Debian
You don't mention which Mint version you have, if it is on the 'edge' it might expose you to bugs

You might also just have a really slow PC with next to no memory
apt can use a lot of resources at times
( network , memory, cpu ,, drives.. all adds up )

Ctrl+Alt+F2-6 to get to a console, log in, and run top. See if there is any process using an absurd amount of memory or processor (use "P" to sort by processor usage, "M" to sort by memory usage). If you find something, then kill it. You can switch back and forth between the console and X with Ctrl+Alt+F#. 7 usually is X (sometimes 1), 2-6 are usually consoles.

If you go through this, can't find anything using up your resources, and the desktop is still locked, then switch to X and use Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to restart it. Doing this will close anything you have running though, so only do it if the above fails and you have no other option, or if you aren't doing anything anyway and don't mind everything closing.

Unless you're fiddling with stuff or you don't have the resources to support the DE (old computer, very little RAM), this kind of thing is incredibly rare in Linux. I see it pretty often in the newer Fedora releases, but not in "real" distros.

Thanks for your responses. I ended up rebooting the next morning. It has hung up once since. So, this is a tough one to really wrestle with. I'm wondering if it was because I was puttering around while updates were in progress. I have held off on the updates for the time being and it hasn't happened since.
Thanks,
Charlie

trouble is , updates are important

besides, an update might fix the issue.