Possible solutions to non-booting desktop

Linux Mint
1

As some of you may know, I have been taking care of my mother and her affairs remotely via her computer. Yesterday, there was an kernel upgrade on both hers as well as mine. I rebooted mine, no issues. I rebooted hers, remotely, and kept trying to get on via Anydesk, but it gave the message “Remote display server is not supported (Wayland)”. I thought, oh no, how could it have went to the login screen with a Wayland session when it never has before?

I am attempting to find someone to physically go there and show me (via camera) what is on the screen, but all of my mom’s friends (her age) know nothing about computers.

I have a live usb there with both LM & Kubuntu, this is a dual boot LM/Kubuntu desktop, but I have never had her boot into Kubuntu since I gave her this desktop last October.

I tried to have her reboot today and tell me what she saw and she saw the splash screen as well as grub menu, and then a flashing cursor. But even if I reboot again, no way she can use the arrow keys to select anything in grub quick enough.

It has to be her specific computer as my LM updated and I was able to still remote into it from my MX Linux laptop via Anydesk–never got any mention of Wayland error on it.

So I am not sure what happened, but just wondering how a kernel upgrade could cause it not to go to login screen after grub menu.

Thanks for any input.

Sheila Flanagan

UPDATE:

Well, thankfully, a young neighbor girl came and got me to the grub menu where I had created the dual boot with Kubuntu and it loaded without issue. I tried the advance recovery options in LM without success. Even tried loading an older kernel (there were 6 listed) but all I ever got was a flashing cursor.

I had her insert the Ventoy drive in case I need it later, but at least I am back up and running. So thankful I had the forethought to make it a dual boot Linux pc just in case one OS ever failed to boot.

Will probably have to wait and travel there myself (my husband just returned last week) in order to resolve the non-booting LM.

Thanks,
Sheila Flanagan

2 Likes
2

If the login manager fails it is

  • X has a problem… it needs X for the splash screen
  • the login daemon is not running
  • the kernel video setup has failed… ie you need nomodeset to force X to setup the video instead of the kernel

I just realised it is Wayland, not X. Same applies only I dont know if nomodeset works with Wayland

Some distros keep old kernels and you can access them via grub recovery option, but I guess you have to be there for that.

2 Likes
3

Thanks @nevj . In the update of my post, I mentioned that I tried that. There were 6 old kernels. I had my mom’s young neighbor girl video call me so I could see the screen. First, booting from default grub and got the LM splash screen, but then flashing cursor. Then tried Advanced Options, next oldest Linux kernel. Got the same results. Even tried repairing and rebooting, but still, once the LM icon flashed for a few seconds, flashing cursor.

So that is when I decided to just boot grub option 0: Kubuntu. And it is working. I have since tried to think of everything I need to do to ensure once I reboot that I get back to Kubuntu:

edit grub config to default=0 (it used to be 4)
UPDATE grub
extended timeout in grub menu to 20 seconds (just in case I am working it with someone else who is not as fast as me; it was 5)
Updated Kubuntu (which had never been booted since last Oct) 245 updates
Installed the RDP apps (2 of them) to ensure if one fails I have another to connect with unattended access in each.

Anything I am missing there?

Not sure if this can be done, but I read an article on “chain-loading” to get the Ventoy disk added to grub menu so that I could boot into a live session.

Thoughts?

Sheila Flanagan

4

Then it is not the kernel video setting.

 booting from default grub and got the LM splash screen, but then flashing cursor

Sounds like login daemin not working. Look to see if logind or elogind is running

There is one trick I use if Login manager fails. Get in there somehow and find the display manager binary (eg lightdm, sddm , or whstever) the rename the binary file , eg
mv sddm sddm.hide.
Then it will boot to the console, you can login and start X by hand with startx

Did that nasty update do anything other than a new kernel?

Never done it with Ventoy.
If you do update-grub with a bootable usb drive plugged in, it will add it to the grub menu.
I have done it by accident

3 Likes
5

It is Great to have a good neighbor near by.

Just a thought, but once you get your mother’s system working again the way you want it, could you turn off updates? Maybe only do updates on her machine once or twice a year when you can be there.

I am glad you got the system up and running.

4 Likes
6

I can’t be sure as I have yet to boot into it after the update required a reboot.

Really? Caused I had the neighbor girl plug in the ventoy usb just in case I might need it. And here in Kubuntu, I have changed the default in grub and updated. Would I be able to see that in terminal? I tried the following before grub change:

ls -1 /etc/grub.d
00_header
05_debian_theme
10_linux
10_linux_zfs
20_linux_xen
20_memtest86+
25_bli
30_os-prober
30_uefi-firmware
35_fwupd
40_custom
41_custom
README

That was before. Now:

00_header
05_debian_theme
10_linux
10_linux_zfs
20_linux_xen
20_memtest86+
25_bli
30_os-prober
30_uefi-firmware
35_fwupd
40_custom
41_custom
README

I don’t see any difference there. I need to see what the grub would display with the current settings. Maybe it would show that Ventoy drive which has live sessions of about 5 different Linux distros.

Thanks,
Sheila

2 Likes
7

Really, @easyt50? I can do that? I am a bit of a nut about updates…LOL, so it never occured to me. But, yes if it would not cause issues, I may refuse to do any kernel updates till I am there 2x/year. Surely I need app updates though?

Thanks,
Sheila

2 Likes
8

I found the command to see the grub menu:

awk -F\' '/^menuentry/ || /^submenu/ {print "  " $2};/[[:space:]]menuentry[[:space:]]/ {print "       " $2}' /boot/grub/grub.cfg
  Ubuntu
  Advanced options for Ubuntu
       Ubuntu, with Linux 6.5.0-35-generic
       Ubuntu, with Linux 6.5.0-35-generic (recovery mode)
       Ubuntu, with Linux 6.5.0-13-generic
       Ubuntu, with Linux 6.5.0-13-generic (recovery mode)
       Ubuntu, with Linux 6.5.0-10-generic
       Ubuntu, with Linux 6.5.0-10-generic (recovery mode)
  memtest86+
  Memory test (memtest86+x64.efi, serial console)
  Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia (21.3) (on /dev/sda3)
  Advanced options for Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia (21.3) (on /dev/sda3)
       Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon (on /dev/sda3)
       Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon, with Linux 5.15.0-107-generic (on /dev/sda3)
       Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon, with Linux 5.15.0-107-generic (recovery mode) (on /dev/sda3)
       Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon, with Linux 5.15.0-106-generic (on /dev/sda3)
       Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon, with Linux 5.15.0-106-generic (recovery mode) (on /dev/sda3)
       Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon, with Linux 5.15.0-89-generic (on /dev/sda3)
       Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon, with Linux 5.15.0-89-generic (recovery mode) (on /dev/sda3)
       Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon, with Linux 5.15.0-56-generic (on /dev/sda3)
       Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon, with Linux 5.15.0-56-generic (recovery mode) (on /dev/sda3)
       UEFI Firmware Settings

But it is not showing the Ventoy USB. I am scared to do the suggested reboot after all those updates for fear I will not get back in. I have a video dr appt with my mom tomorrow afternoon, so I will wait till after that to do the reboot.

Thanks,
Sheila

1 Like
9

Here is the link for getting Ventoy to be on the grub menu. This was an install of the Ventoy on a partition, though, not from the flash drive. Chainloading Ventoy

I may test this on one of my laptops and see if I can get it to work. If so, I could use a small partition of the current Kubuntu partition. I originally installed 1 TB SSD and made one partition for LM and one for Kubuntu. Since this is the first time using Kubuntu partition, I doubt it would hurt anything to make a 50 gb partition off of the 480 allotted to it. But I would use clonezilla first to be sure.

I do have rescuezilla and clonezilla on the Ventoy drive along with latest LM, Kubuntu, Regata & Pop OS .iso files.

A new experiment for sure, but if I could get that working, I can do a temp set in CLI to boot from it just once and get a live session going.

As for any repairs on LM, I do have access to those files on the LM partition, but I do not know where to start in seeing what is messed up that the login screen will not load.

Any help much appreciated.

Sheila

10

You need to look at /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Thise files in /etc are the scripts… they will not change

11

Some partition on the flash drive has to have a boot flag… otherwise grub will ignore it.
I am not sure what happens with Ventoy. You better play safe.

Reading between the lines, it seems you mom is OK. That is great.

2 Likes
12

Short answer. No, they can wait too.
That is just my opinion. I believe if you have a critical system and it is running well,
then the updates can wait until you are there twice a year.

Quick question. Do you have Timeshift running? That might be able to back out the updates.

Wishing you good luck.
Howard

5 Likes
13

I agree with you Howard.
Leaving a home system for 6 months is OK
It is behind a NAT… most of the so called security upgrades are going to be irrelevant.
“If it aint broke dont fix it”

6 Likes
14

I miss the days when you only patched, if the patch had a fix, for something specific, that was broken…

Jeeze - I remember even Windows XP only went as high as Service Pack 3… I think they had a few minor bugfixes or whatever after - but it went EOL at Service Pack 3 from memory?

3 Likes
15

Yes, @easyt50 . I thought of Timeshift last night, and I do not understand how this OS has not been booted for 6 months and yet there are recent Kubuntu snapshots. I knew I had set them up when I first gave the desktop to my mom. I found snapshots for LM from Fri (last week). I wish I could use that without booting into it.

What about rebooting after updates? If I do not, does that just mean I did “not” update? Cause I just updated Kubuntu after 6 mos and have not yet rebooted.

Thanks,
Sheila

1 Like
16

Thanks, @nevj. She is okay, but recovery is much slower than the doctor expected and not much can be done until she can be transported to hospital for repair of the fractured vertebrae.

Now, about the boot flag. Here is what I find concerning the Ventoy flash drive:

Disk /dev/sdb: 28.65 GiB, 30765219840 bytes, 60088320 sectors
Disk model:  SanDisk 3.2Gen1
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xac2b9229

Device     Boot    Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *        2048 60022783 60020736 28.6G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2       60022784 60088319    65536   32M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
myviolinsings@myviolinsings-M32CD-A-F-K20CD-K31CD:~$

So it has a boot flag. Obviously, it has to since we have to boot from it. And the UEFI option in grub would take us to the BIOS to tell it to boot from there, but I cannot see anything at that point in the system boot. I do not know of anyway in CLI to tell the system to boot from the USB without that change in BIOS.

Oh, for the old days, when inserting a bootable flash drive automatically made it the first boot choice.

Thanks,
Sheila

2 Likes
17

Hi Sheila,

No, you cant boot selectively from the CLI… only a reboot
You can boot from the grub> prompt… it is difficult and I would not try it remotely.

I do not understand why os-prober does not see that usb drive. … you do have osprober enabled dont you?
Maybe that is it.
try osprober at the CLI… does it run? What does it see?
also check /etc/default/grub file
it should have
GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=FALSE
if not , grub will not use osprober and will only boot the single installed system.

Also.
You should be able to get the BIOS to see the USB drive in its boot menu, and you should be able to select that and boot the usb directly… again not easy remotely.

Apart from what Howard suggests, the solution might be 2 computers… redundancy protects against dropouts.

Regards
Neville

2 Likes
18

Hmmm. It only sees LM.

The default grub does not have the os-prober line:

# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
#   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"

# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"

# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
#   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"

# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"

So I should add

GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=FALSE

after

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

She has an old laptop that I had been using, but it keeps overheating even with the cooling pad I bought her years ago. But I just got a new “super” cooling pad that does not power via usb, but rather wall outlet, to ensure premium power of running all of the fans at max level.

I am shipping that to her this week and will get someone to get the laptop setup on that and we should be able to have the laptop as a backup.

Thanks for all your help.

Sheila

19

Even after editing grub & update-grub, running os-prober only finds LM, or is that “Linux” entry following Mint what Kubuntu is?:

myviolinsings@myviolinsings-M32CD-A-F-K20CD-K31CD:~$ sudo update-grub
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub'
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-6.5.0-35-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-6.5.0-35-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-6.5.0-13-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-6.5.0-13-generic
Found memtest86+ 64bit EFI image: /boot/memtest86+x64.efi
Warning: os-prober will be executed to detect other bootable partitions.
Its output will be used to detect bootable binaries on them and create new boot entries.
Found Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia (21.3) on /dev/sda3
Adding boot menu entry for UEFI Firmware Settings ...
done
myviolinsings@myviolinsings-M32CD-A-F-K20CD-K31CD:~$ sudo os-prober
/dev/sda3:Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia (21.3):LinuxMint:linux

Sheila

20

You bet, that is the solution
Put it anywhere… at the end is easy.
And do update grub after you edit that line in.

I am confident it will then have your Ventoy disk in the grub menu

Take care
Neville