<SOLVED> LM 17 Cinnamon crashes in "try" mode
Postby bikrgran on Tue Jul 01, 2014 5:27 pm

I'm thinking of changing to 17 Cinnamon from 16 KDE. I downloaded and burned to a RW-DVD, which, I now understand, has problems, although it works on my laptop. Since both desktops crash within seconds, I tried again, checking the MD5sum, and burning to a DVD-R and USB. I'm attaching a picture of the screen. I had this problem with Cinnamon on my old 512 machine, but that's understandable. These machines are Win 7 machines. This machine is dual booted with Win 7 and 16 KDE. I have allocated 75GB for Mint, and left the rest to Windows, which I'm pretty weaned from, but not sure I want to totally turn loose, just yet. I've got 4GB RAM. Can someone please tell me what the deal is, with this? I don't dare install it, if it crashes in DVD mode. See the screen shot. Just had a thought...can this have something to do with the video?

Thanks!

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I'd suggest trying the MATE desktop environment. It's a bit more efficient than Cinnamon and considered more stable.

mdlinuxwolf, I tried Mate and got the same results. I've tried to change to "nomodeset", and went through every nvidia option I have in 16, so far, today, and get nothing. I can't figure out how to boot from the DVD/USB from GRUB, after I changed to nomodeset, and it changes back once it boots into 16. I've just given up. I thought that the nvidia thing had been fixed in 17, and it may be, but the problem sure looks familiar, I just don't know how to get around it. I guess I'll stick with what I have. I can't afford a bunch of DVD-R's to keep trying this stuff, but I loaded it on a USB drive and that is MUCH faster loading, and eraseable.

Thanks for the suggestion. You are the only one, in two days to even remark on it.

Complete shot in the dark, but have you tried the Nvidia proprietary driver?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html

Also have you tried any other distributions other than Mint? Any desktop environments other than KDE and Mate or Cinnamon?

George, I'm running nvidia 304.88, which is the recommended driver, and also the one rec'd from the nvidia site. I tried Fedora before I came to Mint, and because I was brand new to Linux, Mint just seemed easier, for some reason. I had this problem on my old 512mb/Win XP machine, but backed off to Mate, and it ran fine until the HD gave up the ghost. I did have to change to "nomodeset", but can't for the life of me, remember how I booted from BIOS, using a DVD, and changed the nomodeset. Unless I have specific code, I'm pretty Terminal illiterate, so changing GRUB, etc is pretty much over my head. I might check into Fedora, again. At least I have a Guru for that. <G>

Thanks for the suggestions, and for getting back to me. I've been pretty frustrated, and just illiterate enough to not know what to look for. <LOL>

Without eliminating a few variables or getting some log output, etc. I don't believe I will be able to help you diagnose this problem. Wish I could offer more help.

No problem, George. I thought I'd like Cinnamon, but 16 KDE is fine. I might check into Fedora, but I've about given up on Mint 17. I can't keep it running long enough to do anything. About 30-45 secs before crashing. Thanks, anyway.

Boot your DVD, and during the timeout (when you see the menu), hit the <Tab> key as it says. This will bring up the kernel line - add the following (note blank/space character first) then hit <Enter>This change is only for the duration of the DVD boot.
Strictly speaking you shouldn't need it if Mint16 works.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks, Syg00. That worked!!! I'm saving that one. <LOL> I screwed up and ended up with a triple-boot system, but it seems that LibreOffice in 17, is different from 16, and I can't find a very important file, but I haven't spent a lot of time with Libre, this a.m.....YET! At least I was able to boot AND change to nomodeset, which was what I was trying to do.

So, now that I have Win 7, LM 16 and LM17, is it possible to move my PROGRAMS from 16 to 17 w/o having to go through the download and setup thing again? I managed to restore my files, using deja-dup, but could never get Backup Tool to work for me. Can I somehow remove the wall between 16 & 17 and use all of that space for 17, once I get settled in, or do I have to reinstall and go through the partition thing again? That's very confusing/scary to me, for some reason.

Thanks, again! You are an angel!!!

Once you have restored all your personal data, generally you can just re-install any programs you need and they should find things ok. Works ok for things like browsers and mail clients.
As for the space Mint16 is occupying, once you are sure you don't need anything there (backups !!), simply delete the partition - you can then use something like gparted to include that space into your Mint17 system.

SUPER, Syg. I'm up and running, and other than being a little slowed up (I assume from all the partitions <G>) I'm happy. I will be putting it on my laptop today, and may hold off, a day or two, to take 16 off. I think I saw gparted somewhere. I thought it was included in 17, but it's not, but I'll download it. Thanks so much for your help. I was getting pretty disappointed, when nobody could help me. I knew there had to be a way to get that nvidia/nomodeset fixed, but couldn't find anything that helped. I had a similar problem when I first loaded Mint on my old 512/XP machine, but once I switched to Mate, then I was able to get it to run long enough to change the nomodeset. Even Mate crashed on this one. I'm making notes, for anything in the future. <LOL> Thanks, again!

GParted is on the Mint 17 installation medium and you would be better off using that than running it from Mint 17, particularly if you are going to increase the size of the Mint 17 partition.

Yancek, I can't find gparted on my ICO medium. Can you tell me where to find it. I'm sure I can download it from somewhere, but if it's already there, so much the better.

Syg00, I have gotten my files moved (I HOPE all of them...a BUNCH for sure! <G>)

I seem to have plenty of room, so there isn't a big rush to get the partitions done, but I want to do all this, while I've got help. Sometimes, everyone is busy, or not as smart as me <LOL>, or something...at least, it's hard to find good help. THANKS, you guys!!! I REALLY appreciate it.

While I wait for feedback, I will track down gparted. Deleting 16's partition is easy enough. I did that with Win 8 and LM16. What I'm a little in the dark about, is how to grab that space for 17.

Thanks, again!

I can't find gparted (at least by that name) on the USB, or DVD live media. I DID install it from Software Manager, but that put it in 17. I'm attaching a screen shot of the partitions. /dev/dsa5 is LM 16, /dev/sda3 is Win 7, /dev/sda 7 is LM 17, /dev/sda4 is "extended" (whatever that means), /dev/sda 6 is the swap (what I couldn't remember a few minutes ago ;-) and there's 1.02 mb of unallocated space. Not sure what that is, either.

So! Do I go to SourceForge and download gparted to a DVD/USB as live, or can I just do this from 17? Since I'm going to spread 17 out, over 16, maybe I should go to Windows, which isn't going to be changed, and do it from there? Offhand, not sure what to use there, but it seems there's a way of partitioning from there. Given that Windows has less wiggle room, I might give some of 16 to it, but it's only going to be there a while longer, and I'm not using it, so maybe I'll just leave it alone. Sorry about rambling...my brain's going 90-to-nothing. <LOL>

OK, will do my BU now, while I wait to see what the consensus is. My thoughts, for comparison: download gparted from SF & create ICO; delete /dev/sda5 (LM16). I leave /dev/sda6 (swap), but what about /dev/sda4 (extended) what is it for? And what about the 1.02mb unallocated that's just floating around?

Thanks! Off to do backup.

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Use the gparted liveCD.
Delete /dev/sda5 - the "down left" (apply) icon will become active. Click it to apply the change.
Then you'll have free space to the right of your partition - (with the mouse) simply drag the right edge of /dev/sda7 over to incorporate all the free space just created. Apply that.
All done.

Leave /dev/sda4 alone - this is a container for sda5/6/7 ... You really need sda4.
Likewise leave the swap alone - and on a 500 Gig disk why worry about the nickel and dime unused bits ?.