Near idiot Noob. Need help with crashing cinnamon...
 

Just repented and decided to get away from Microsoft. Put Mint on a stick and took it to my jacked-up Windoze 10 installation. Changed BIOS to UEFI and the boot order to USB drive first. Let 'er rip. I was stoked when the installation seemed to go well, and I surfed and checked email.

Then I installed on the laptop, and chose to wipe the OS since Linux said it couldn't see one on the machine anyway. Then, thinking I'd reboot from the machine, I changed BIOS back to OS Boot Manager, and restarted.

Now it is crashing every time I open - even when I boot from the stick. I don't know where to start.

How far does it get before crashing? Does it just hang on a black screen or a specific line of text, or power off?

Also, in all of the BIOSes I've used, you just change the boot order to switch to the hard drive. Is there an option called OS Boot Manager? What are the alternative options?

That often happens if you have no free space outside your current partitions. Which of the options to install did you select? Best to use the manual (Something Else) option which will give you some control over the installation. Did you install Mint in UEFI? What manufacturer of the laptop? and what exactly does 'crashing' mean. Does it start up and stop at some point or are you not able to boot at all.

Might be best to boot the Mint install medium and go to the site below and download and run it selecting the Create BootInfo Summary option. You can post the output here and someone should be able to suggest something.

Congratulations on that success.
Even tho you changed the boot settings to UEFI, it would still be a good procedure to verify that the Mint USB is actually booted in UEFI mode before installing to the hard drive. Some computers are better than others in doing what you expect them to do.
You can use this command to check:
If you see "efi" listed in the output, the live Mint USB is booted in UEFI/EFI mode. If it's not listed, you're booted in Legacy/Bios mode.
If you want to get fancy with it, you can enter the command:
What did you do to "wipe the OS"? Are you saying you used the "Use Entire Hard Drive" option in the Mint installation program?

An OS Boot Manager will allow you to start an OS which has been installed correctly in UEFI mode, because those OS's are recorded in the NVRAM (basic UEFI settings). But if they are not installed, they will never boot - which is to say that OS Boot Manager will never boot your USB Mint, because that has never been installed. There is no record of it in the NVRAM.
Please try booting the Mint USB the same way it booted originally. If you can do that, post the result of Boot Info Script, as yancek recommended. It is in the Mint repository.
Install boot-info-script:
Then run the script:
Paste the results at pastebin.com - and copy the resulting link to the forum.

Yancek - thank you for the response! Based on the fact that I've never opened a terminal (or command prompt) except when I've been on the phone with customer service 15 years ago, I'm sure I made a bunch of noob mistakes. This is what I fear I did, and this is what I've done:

1) I chose UEFI Hybrid
2) when it was working, and there was a 'click-through' installation, I did not choose "Something Else" - though I can't remember what I *did* choose
3) I mistakenly pulled the USB stick while the 'instance' was running, thinking that since I'd installed (on the HP Elitebook 8470p/Core i7 vPro), it would reboot and work like a 'normal' computer. Uh, no... because
4) I hadn't changed boot up *away* from USB. So not only was it not booting from the computer hard drive, I believe that I had corrupted the ISO on the stick by pulling it. That may sound stupid, but based on what happened next...
5) I decided to re-install. So I wiped the USB stick, re-formatted, and downloaded Mint 17.2 with Mate (instead of Cinnamon)...
6) Changed back to BIOS booting from "Generic USB"
7) Put the new stick in, and booted. Worked perfectly.
8) Installed, and once again did not choose "Something else". Still can't remember what I defaulted to....
9) Machine told me that there was already an instance of Mint on the hard drive. I told it to wipe and install this ISO/image/whatever
10) I'm happily using Linux again.

So while I'm interested in finding out what happened, I'm much more interested (for the time being) in finding out how to:

1) take the USB stick out and boot "normally". This is important because I'm leaving town, and my three high school kids + wife need to access internet for school and email. If there is a way to break something, they'll find it. For sure - including the thumb drive sticking out of the machine that I tell them over and over to NOT touch....

2) reduce touchpad sensitivity, because i'm typing on my work Mac after trying five times to type this without deleting it or accidentally hitting some 'back' button that nukes this post.

TxLonghorn - thank you! I don't know how to get a 'command prompt' in Linux. Sorry, that's how bad it is (read: "how bad I am..."). I have re-imaged the thumb drive to Mint 17.2 with Mate (instead of Cinnamon), killed the previous installation, and reinstalled on the HP Elitebook 8470p I'm using. I'm back on the internet, and I'm not crashing at this point. This is a monster success for this old history major/sales guy.

I'd like the machine to run Linux *without* the thumb drive, but based on last night's adventures, I'm afraid to do anything other than leave the current boot options as they are. On the other hand, I'd be stoked to use your commands to look around and report if I could find the way to get started. I know this can't be interesting from a technical point of view, but I'm grateful for your time on my behalf.

TxLonghorn -

I used the ls /sys/firmware command. The result is:

acpi efi memmap


I don't know what that means, except that you said that Mint is 'booted' in EFI. Is that okay?


I did the other commands as you suggested. This is the pastebin link:

pastebin.com/sci1zY37

Thanks!
That means that you have booted Mint in EFI mode - which means that you probably successfully installed Mint in UEFI mode. However, since you did not change your boot setup you are still running Mint on the USB.
Now that Mint is installed on the hard drive, the appropriate thing would be to switch your boot settings to boot the hard drive first. You will know it is Mint on the hard drive when you see the "Welcome Screen" window.

You can use the Main Menu to open a Terminal, which gives you the command prompt, or, with Mint, you can do Ctrl-Alt-t

Good job so far.
But what you posted at pastebin.com was the text from the terminal, and what I was looking for was the results.
If you look at the bottom of the text you posted, it says
Finished. The results are in the file "RESULTS.txt"
located in "/home/mint/".
Open that text file, copy the entire contents, and paste the contents at pastebin.com
The live Mint that you are using does not keep that file when you re-boot, so if it has disappeared, you have to start over. Re-install Boot Info Script. Run the script... etc.

But, really, chances are that Mint is already installed OK, and there is no need for the Boot Info Script.