I have run an update and an upgrade and ever since I receive this message box on start up:
Do you want to restart Cinnamon?
Cinnamon just crashed. You are currently running in Fallback Mode.

Restarting Cinnamon does not work, if I press 'Yes' I end up with a blank screen. If I press 'No' I get Fallback Mode. I found a similar thread on the forums which says this is related to incompatible Nvidia graphic card drivers with the new version of Cinnamon. This creates two problems for me:
1. I have an AMD Radeon graphics card.
2. I can't connect to the internet.
In Fallback Mode I don't seem to have access to a terminal. So I figured out how to boot into a command line to see if I could connect to the internet from the command line. When I ran '$ iwconfig', I received the following output:
eth0 no wireless extensions

lo no wireless extensions

I am at a bit of a loss at the moment, and will continue to search for a solution, but any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
StuartK.

Can you paste the output from inxi -Fxxxz please, if possible.

Also, how much video memory do you have?

hydrurga, I don't know how to cut and paste it, I'm having to work from Windows. I'm going to try attaching a picture. I think it is indicating a problem with the graphics drivers. Also, frankbell, I have 1Gb of video memory.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Before anything else, Mint 17 is now end of life as of last month.

You should upgrade your system as soon as you are able, and you might well find that doing so solves your issue. I would suggest a fresh install of 19.1 might be the best bet, given how far back you are - you can try out a live media first to see how it works on your system.

I've never actually upgraded my system before. Are you saying I should upgrade, or should I completely slate the old install and install a totally new one?

Given that your upgrade would include the change from 17.x to 18.x, a significant one which involved the adoption of systemd, I would suggest a fresh install of Mint 19.1, after having first backed up all your documents and other data files to two external media.

But first, run a live media of Mint 19.1 on your PC to see that it works ok.

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I was just revisiting this post. Thank you hydrurga for taking the time to help me with this problem.

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