Hi,
The subject describes the problem pretty well. Doing some research online suggests that this has something to do with kernel drivers not being compatible and that the temporary solution is to specify nomodeset in Grub. This does work, but I understand that it’s a kludgy fix and that there should be a better way to do it, especially since I don’t think I’m getting maximum native resolution out of the screen in this way. Can someone please steer me toward a better solution? Thank you!

Start by telling what hardware that you have. What video hardware, intel, amd, nvidia?
What kernel the mint DVD is using, or that you have installed?

try editing the grub config to use the nomodeset command;
https://www.dell.com/support/article...ooting?lang=en

The newest kernels have moved the video mode setting into the kernel. So all the programming of the hardware specific clock rates and registers on the video card happen in the kernel rather than in the X driver when the X server starts.. This makes it possible to have high resolution nice looking splash (boot) screens and flicker free transitions from boot splash to login screen. Unfortunately, on some cards this doesn't work properly and you end up with a black screen. Adding the nomodeset parameter instructs the kernel to not load video drivers and use BIOS modes instead until X is loaded.

There are various ways to fix the problem but we need to know your GPU information

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...l_mode_setting

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi, Everyone,
Thanks a lot for the willingness to help. Sorry I didn't respond sooner.
Inserting "nomodeset" in the live DVD grub menu does allow the distro to boot fully with graphics working, although, as I mentioned above, the display resolution looks off to me (too, big and slightly fuzzy, as if the resolution is lower than what the hardware can do).
Okay, the laptop is a Widows 7-era Gateway. The display controller is "Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller, (rev 07)"
Under the latest version of Linux Mint, the kernel is 5.4.0-26-generic
I also tried the latest version of Antix (which yields a similar, black screen result with the live DVD) and it's running kernel 4.9.212-antix.1-486-smp.
Thanks again for your willingness to assist!

Addendum here that I've done more research on this and this GPU indeed seems to have issues under newer versions of Linux. See here, for example. Some of what's discussed is over my head, though.

You might get something from this
https://mintguide.org/system/73-inte...for-linux.html

Interesting, thanks!