[SOLVED] system hangs at black screen w/arrow cursor following entry of user password

seangood · 12-28-2015, 04:22 AM

Hi-I am running Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.3 (I think).
My system appeared to be getting slower and slower so I purged pulse audio at the command line. On reboot and entering my user password the system hangs with a black screen w/cursor arrow.

Any assistance would be appreciated. I can access a terminal via the installation disk.I'm able to copy and paste commands but not much else at this point.

seangood · 12-28-2015, 01:10 PM

UPDATE
Given that I might have to re-install Cinnamon, can anybody tell me how I can retrieve and save the data that's on my HD before re-installation?

Should I start a new thread with this question?

colorpurple21859 · 12-28-2015, 06:04 PM

At the login screen hit alt-ctrl-f1 login, then

Code:

sudo apt-get install cinnamon

seangood · 12-28-2015, 07:30 PM

Many thanks.I'm now able to login at command level. How can I switch to the GUI? ... or must I save my Home directory to an external drive via the terminal and then re-install Mint from the disk?

NGIB · 12-28-2015, 07:34 PM

startx?

colorpurple21859 · 12-28-2015, 08:54 PM

after installing cinnamon alt-f7 will take you back to login screen

seangood · 12-29-2015, 02:02 AM

Thank you.
NGIB: startx initiated a brief stream of data then went black w/o cursor.

colorpurple21859: Sudo apt-get install cinnamon was successful and returned to prompt ~S

I then pressed Alt and F7 simultaneously, the input was ~

Have I missed something?

seangood · 12-29-2015, 02:46 AM

Thanks to all. I repeated every instruction and waited patiently... Voila! My desktop returned. Methinks startx did the trick.Thanks to both for your assistance. Dear Moderator, how do I close a thread?

timl · 12-29-2015, 02:55 AM

seangood. At the top of the page look for "thread tools" and click "mark thread as solved". Noone else needs to respond but future inquiries may refer to this to solve heir own problems.

Cheers