DM IS the login manager.
Anyway, you disabled it.
I dont mind startx… at least I have control of things.
I believe slim DM allows you to jump back to the console. That may be a solution… or try my login .conf mods
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So long as this continues to work - it’s my workaround - both systems are locked down (LUKS on “/” root partition - I’d rather ZFS encryption - but I’ve seen ZFS writes eat CPU with encryption - so will wait till ZFS is more mature in Linux - it’s primetime in BSD - and has been for a decade)…
Something killed my GDM - could be AMD GPU update - could be my keyring - who knows - I will never know because I will trash both my Linux desktops before I ever try getting to the bottom of this issue - as mentioned in many previous threads - I keep all my data in self-hosted cloud storage and I don’t dual boot… The biggest thing is if / when I need to restore my Steam Game Library (and I have enough NAS storage “right now” that this isn’t a problem)…
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Goshdarn it if it this isn’t totally inconvenient!
Ran into some issues with VeryCrypt on my Pop!_OS 22.04 desktop - had been up a few days at least, decided to give it a kick in the guts (reboot)… But before that - I disabled GDM…
So - I rebooted - nada… I can still SSH to it but… Tried a few things… nada - no response…
So - I powered down completely - powered up again…
Still NADA!
So I re-enabled GDM - and eventually (like 10-15 minutes) I get the GDM login screen (despite my gnome session being set to “auto login” [hey it’s my computer, and the NVMe SSD is encrypted with LUKS anyway!])… But hitting CTRL+ALT+F3, F4 et cetera was doing sweet fanny addams, and it’s a RIGHT PITA 'cause I boot with FN lock off - so I have to actually :
CTRL+ALT+FN+F3, F4, F5… as I said PITA - one of these days I’ll see if the BIOS / UEFI will let me have FN lock ON after POST.
Anyway - that wasn’t working or having any effect!
So I plugged another keyboard it (yet another Lenovo Thinkpad USB keyboard) - and CTRL+ALT+FN+F3 got my character based login on TTY 3 - logged in - ran startx and I have my desktop back…
If I can be arsed - I might see what replacing the AMD GPU with an NVidia does, and try it with Nouveau (until I want to do some gaming)… Right now finger’s pointed squarely at AMD as the culprit, similar symptoms on two Ubuntu based (Pop!_OS 22,04 and Ubuntu 23.04) with AMD GPU…
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This is getting very “old” …
Dug out my old NVidia GTX1650 Super PCIe GPU, but it can only drive three monitors if they’re :
- Display port (x1)
- HDMI (x1)
- DVI (x1)
I have a decent long DVI → HDMI cable that works in either direction… But I just ripped through boxes of computer related shit and cables, and not a sign of it!
Doh! I need those three ports - my main 32" gaming monitor : DisplayPort, my “above” monitor (also 32" but not gaming) which I usually keep a display of the ABC News channel (which was going to go “DVI” from the GTX1650 to HDMI on the monitor), and my XP-PEN pen display, on HDMI…
Oh well…
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Never got around to cutting over to my NVidia GPU…
Symptoms (won’t autoload GUI - so I disabled gdm) on the Thinkpad with Ubuntu 23.04 persist - so - I’m forcing it to update to 23.10 (“sudo do-release-update -d”)…
Wish me luck…
Nope - still broken under 23.10… I’ll either have to keep tolerating no GUI login i.e. make sure GDM is stopped - then Ctrl+Alt+Fn+F3,4,5 - login to TTY, then run startx - or - install from scratch…
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Given up on trying to fix the issue on the Thinkpad…
Was going to re-install Pop!_OS (was running that before I tried Ubuntu 23.04) - but - decided to test-drive Mint 21.2 via Ventoy, and, it seems okay, found it trivially easy to move the window control widgets to the left side (on Gnome systems you have to install Gnome Tweaks to be able to do something like that) - and moved the bottom panel to the top…
So - liked it enough - took a punt, and I’m installing Linux Mint 21.2 on it now - was tempted to try ZFS, but not quite ready for that, last time I tried ZFS on Linux, I could see z write and z read processes eating CPU - so I’m settling for LUKS encryption and LVM… I keep some personal information on there - so can’t risk it falling into nefarious hands…
Once done - I may be in the market for a decent “dock” (i.e. a software dock). If I can’t find one “out of the box” (I just use dash 2 dock, or panel 2 dock gnome extensions on Ubuntu or Pop!_OS) - I’ll just install plank (I don’t like docky, or cairo dock, they seem to be overly heavy for such things)… Hmmm - that’s if plank will run - yet to determine if its using Wayland or X11 (Wayland is a showstopper for me ATM - as I NEED Synergy KVM), Synergy and Plank do not play well (or at all) with Wayland…
Update - plank works just fine on Mint with Cinnamon… Was a tad worried when trying to start Google Chrome after I installed it (nothing happened - but it wouldn’t run) did an apt update && apt upgrade - and reboot - and Google Chrome launches and syncs with my google identity…
Resilio - some 4 hours later has sync’d my 300+ GB “cloud folders”…
Have installed Brave as well… Getting brave sync working not quite as straightforward as Google Chrome…
I tried Cinnamon about 4+ years ago… Wasn’t happy with it… But it feel a lot like XFCE, which is my 3rd favourite DE after Gnome, then Pantheon (elementary)… TBH if i had a choice - I’d run Apple Quartz desktop DE 
- it works in similar ways like my brain works…
DOH!
I just noticed something that might seem trivial to some - but - the DEFAULT for Window control widgets in MINT Cinnamon seems to be :
_ X
And when you put them on the left :
X _
That’s NOT how they should be - EVERYBODY ELSE, Microsoft, Apple, Gnome, KDE, XFCE do this :
Right side : _ X
Left side : X _
Who do these Cinnamon people think they are? Yeah - sounds trivial - but if I can’t fix this - it’s going to niggle me enough to make MINT Cinnamon a nogo from me…
Some DEs let you change the layout using some “terse” single characters - something like “CNM S” or whatever (LMDE?) - with the “space” denoting the middle of the application window titlebar.
Is there anything like this for mint?
Here’s something from 11-12 years ago - let’s hope it’s still relevant :
That references installing gconf-editor - that’s no longer an installable package via apt install…
found it elsewhere - this did the trick :
gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout 'close,minimize,maximize:'
But a PITA TBH… I’m surprised actually, they’d flout the convention everyone else adopts…
actually - I think I’m gonna consign Mint Cinnamon to the garbage heap - I think I tried it ~5 years ago or something and gave up…
It’s bluetooth that’s killed it for me - the bluetooth settings applet looks and feels like something from earlier this century and it REFUSES to pair with my bluetooth speaker (both Pop!_OS and Ubuntu [22.04, 23.04 and 23.10] work just fine with this speaker, not to mention Android and MacOS).
Typing this in Brave on Mint Cinnamon 21.2 - but it’s soon to be trashed - reckon I’ll go back to Pop!_OS… Only 3-4 hours wasted really…
I’ll probably delete it (ISO files - I have several) off my NAS and my Ventoy stick too while I’m there…
OK have Pop!_OS 22.04 installed and running on my Thinkpad… All the software I want (or most of it anyway) is installed and all my private cloud stuff is sync’d to it…
Just had a Homer Simpson “DOH!” moment - Pop!_OS has a recovery partition!!!
I might see what happens if I select that option from Grub on my Desktop machine (also Pop!_OS 22)… Apparently - it’s a copy of Pop!_OS and you can re-install but keep your settings… If that’s all - I can’t really see the point - probably simpler (in my case anyway) to just boot the install media off Ventoy and do a fresh install…
It is odd - same / similar symptoms with AMD GPU on Ubuntu 22.04 and Pop!_OS 22.04.
I mentioned somewhere else a message appearing about IRQ7 - no idea what it means, but it happened when I booted Ventoy and the Pop!_OS live image off Ventoy - but still loaded the live GUI and installed fine, rebooted fine, and boots up fine…
So its like a recovery CD… only on your disk in its own partition?
Is it automatically updated with regular snapshots?
A bit like rsyncing your whole OS to another partition every day ?
Would not be that hard to set up in any Distro.
Or have I got it wrong?
I’m yet to find out - you can update the recovery partition, so I guess it saves having to do a pile of updates installing from other media…
I reckon I’ll give it a go and see if it can fix my desktop machine being unable to load the DM and WM and DE (WM and DE still run manually when I eventually get in and type “startx”)…
seems to indicate - when using an encrypted disk - it’s a pretty complex process… I think I’d just boot from Ventoy stick and re-install (wipe) again from scratch - all my “volatile” or important user-data I keep on my private cloud solution (Resilio Sync) - all my games are cloud stored (i.e. I can re-install them from scratch via Steam)…
Yes, it says that, but it seems to indicate updating is a manual process initiated by the user… not like a raid disk, more like a continuously connected backup disk with a live image.
Like I said, its a gui’d substitute for rsync.