Help! a major catastrophe with my Linux Mint installation ...

[joe at actionline.com]

Thanks Michael and Stephen ...

Got it working again (mostly) although it seems that the last
update I did changed some things and took away some features
and functions. I still have 4 desktops, but each one has the
same background, whereas before I was able to have a different
background on each screen (to keep straight where I was ;)
Really miss that feature.

Other features and functions are also gone.

I hate system updates.

-------------
On 2021-03-04 6:04 pm, Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss wrote:
> Sounds like gpu died, or drivers did.  If you have another laptop or
> anything to ssh from, see if you can get into the box via ssh and
> troubleshoot that way.  I've popped video cards to die before, and
> they work, but only headless.
> 
> Try to 'cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log' to see if your card died, or updated
> perhaps unexpectedly.  Sadly updating some minor 3rd party crap would
> occasionally break my whole update and os, ubuntu or arch really.
> Last time I upgraded my arch it broke nvidia binary support with too
> new a kernel, luckily I never use the nvidia gpu as prime is a
> basketcase anyways, so it uses intel normally anyways.  Above old
> laptop example worked if I disable nvidia drivers and used only intel,
> as the gpu fried.  Yours might have if video is just dead, but
> otherwise seems alive.
> 
> If only intel, your software may have just gotten hozed - try a
> different user profile if you can get any video out of it.
> 
> -mb
> 
> On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 1:13 PM Stephen Partington via PLUG-discuss
> <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
> 
>> You may have something off in your settings for cinnamon, This is
>> for arch, but it can give you a great place to start from.
>> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/cinnamon
>> 
>> But my first thought would be to rename the config files for your
>> window manager and reboot to see if it is part of those settings.
>> 
>> On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 11:09 AM joe--- via PLUG-discuss
>> <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> I have been running Linux Mint 17 on several computers
>>> 24/7 for a very long time with very reliable performance.
>>> 
>>> This morning, when I turned on the monitor, the panel
>>> had vanished and I no way to do anything.
>>> 
>>> I finally found a way to get to the command line and
>>> all of my data appears to be there, but none of my
>>> utilities in my home/bin file work.
>>> 
>>> Recently, I read that Linux Mint was threatening to
>>> coerce users to upgrade to a newer version. This would
>>> be unconscionable and reprehensible! Is this what they
>>> have done.
>>> 
>>> I hope someone can help me figure out how to get my
>>> system working again.