Desktop pc won't boot into de after update

Support System Updates
1

following the 01/oct/24 update my pc wont boot into the desktop. after a lot of help from this forum it looks like it is related to the nvidia driver
I read (alas after updating) the release note that describes an issue with ‘nvidia’ however i’m not sure this applies to my system because I do not use Kernel ‘69’
my system is over a decade old and I use the Cinnamon edition with kernel ‘5.15.167-1’ My reasoning for not updating the kernel is that I have old hardware and I probably have nothing to gain from a newer kernel and updating maybe even loose support for my old hardware - but maybe i’m wrong??
I read your excellent article about configure graphic cards I can TTY into my pc, so I use some of the commands but could not resolve the issue.
Here’s what I tried:

*Identifying Available Drivers:*
video-nvidia-390xx and the usual freedrivers

*Install a driver:* 
Warning: a version of config 'video-nvidia-390xx' is already installed 

*Force reinstall a driver*
Error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: removing nvidia-390xx-utils breacks dependency 'nvidia-utils' required by nvidia-390xx
:: removing libxnuctrl0390xx breacks dependency 'libxnuctrl' required by psensor
Error: pamac failed

*Checking configuration*
 --check command: xorg configuration symlink valid...
--status command: xorg configuration file '/etc/X11/mhwd.d/nvidia.conf'

I’m not sure what else to try?
Just to clarify, it was the suggestion by ‘soundofthunder’ to Update the Kernel that fixed the issue.

2

First thing is to provide some more data of your system by sharing output of

inxi -Fza

When you have error messages, please post command being used and output you obtained.

1 Like
3

As I can only boot into a TTY session on the system in question, I can not copy/paste the terminal output into the forum (I’m using a spare laptop to interact with the forum). I recently have been made aware of ‘pastebin’ sites, but I never used any. Out of the ones listed in the article, do you have a preference?
If i understand correctly they work by uploading the terminal output into a .txt file (assuming the PC has an internet connection) and send me back (into the terminal?) a link to access the file online. I then either post the link or download the file and post it (what’s preferred?)
Sorry about the lengthy post but I almost never use the terminal in daily use, so I have very little experience with it and want to make sure I get it right and don’t make my issue any worth.

4

Spoiler Alert: Linux user’s should always have a Bootstick prepared, in case something goes wrong.

If you don’t have already, you can create a Live Bootstick (newest Manjaro ISO).

We recommend to use Ventoy for it, we recommend to use Ventoy because you can easy refresh your ISO with drag and drop files in the folder there and this way you can use Multiple ISO Bootimages if you want too.

When you boot into the Live Environment from there you can get online again and log into your Forum account, go in terminal and chroot (link) your Live Boot with your old install, with:
manjaro-chroot -a

and then post your system info’s inxi -Fza from Terminal into our Forum (as CODE with </> or crtl+e)

I feel like a robot to make this recommendations again and again :slight_smile:
But for unexperienced user’s, use Timeshift (GUI)… create a system snapshot on a external USB drive or maybe a USB Stick only for this snapshots, before you update and you can rollback your system in Live Boot (USB Bootstick),
this way you will always have a reliable system where you can count on it.

Timeshift is simple and easy to handle, i love the Menue and it saves your ass.

5

No preference.
Getting the information across is the only important thing.

The link is good enough.
The rest will be just more work for you with no real benefit to anyone.

I was only slightly frustrated when I said, in the other thread, after a few days worth of interaction, that I could not, and was not willing to, give you a “Linux basics” online crash course while we where chasing down your issue.

I was more worried about you getting frustrated. :sunglasses:

6

Hi
I TTY into the system and run the command as requested. Please note I’m using the Cinnamon edition if that makes a difference Here is the link to inxi output.

I was told in another thread that a TTY session will give a better/correct terminal output than ‘manjaro-chroot’ ? I do agree that using ‘chroot’ from a live system makes it easy to copy/paste into the forum, in fact I used that method when I was asked to provide a ‘log’ file.

7

It you can get to a command prompt using recovery mode, see if you can do a

modprobe nouveau

to load the open source driver. See if it then boots to the DE after resuming recovery mode.

8

The problem is, you can’t copy that stuff from a TTY or did i miss something?

9

That is very simply based upon observation.
I did not any research into it as to why this is so.
But:

it IS so

there is a (noitceable) difference

10

Sometimes information needed might only be accessible from within the chroot environment; and sometimes from the Live ISO terminal is sufficient;

Here’s that global qualifier: “It depends…”

However, there is a technique that will work for you in the terminal, using a TTY, and even in a chroot environment:

You can experiment with this using various commands.

For example:

cat /etc/fstab > my-output.txt

If we assume that command is run from your User directory, the output of cat /etc/fstab will then be piped to a new file ~/my-output.txt.

Instead of creating multiple text files for each command output piped, you can add text to the same file (without overwriting previously piped text) by using two >> characters instead of one >.

From that point, that text file can be copied or moved as needed to a more accessible location; for example to the Live ISO’s desktop or a USB disk.

Then the file may be opened in whatever the default text editor happens to be, and the text content can be copied/pasted to the forum.

Cheers.

11

… and here is another part of the mentioned “Linux basics” online crash course :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
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No I can run the command from TTY and I did post the result of ‘inxi -Fza’, maybe you missed it in my reply as it was just a link. Here it is inxi output

13

Your system seems to be reporting that no microcode package is installed:

  Vulnerabilities:
  ...
  Type: srbds status: Vulnerable: No microcode
  ...

Check whether that is accurate with:

pacman -Qi intel-ucode

If it’s not found, install it with:

sudo pacman -S intel-ucode

Your BIOS is the latest (non-beta) BIOS available for your machine, so that seems fine.

You can try updating the kernel to 6.1 (LTS) which might improve things generally. If it does not, it’s easy enough to revert to kernel 5.1.x should you need to.

See the following link for required instructions:

I’d recommend taking the time to learn the basics. Any time you ask for support, knowledge of bash commands and general commandline tools are usually expected.

A definite :+1: on this; and always try to have the latest available ISO downloaded and ready to boot.

Are you aware of Ventoy?

Creating a Ventoy USB is fast becoming the solution of choice for booting ISO files. Basically drag an ISO file to the Ventoy USB, boot the USB, and any ISO’s will show in the Ventoy menu automatically.

Click a menu entry to boot the respective ISO. Plus, a Ventoy USB only has to be created once.

Interested? If so, please indicate as much and I’ll provide more information on Ventoy.

The main difference is that the Cinnamon edition is a Community project; typically maintained by one person. The official Manjaro editions include KDE Plasma, XFCE and Gnome. Cinnamon may not be quite as up to date as the official editions, and possibly less people use it.

14

Please do not forget to tell the people here, that in the other thread, before this one:

Unable to boot after latest update - #68 by Nachlese

you did disable the display manager (lightdm).

We did this so that you could boot at least to TTY mode.

So as of now, lightdm isn’t getting started, which was intentionally done and is not an error at this point.

You are at a TTY only because you would get a black screen with the display manager active.

Your system in the current state - with display manager disabled - cannot and will not boot into any desktop.

you should be able to run
startx
after login though, to start your cinnamon session

15

I run the command to check, but it came back as installed?

Name            : intel-ucode
Version         : 20240910-1
Description     : Microcode update files for Intel CPUs
Architecture    : any
URL             : https://github.com/intel/Intel-Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-Files
Licenses        : custom
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : None
Optional Deps   : None
Required By     : None
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : microcode_ctl
Installed Size  : 20.10 MiB
Packager        : T.J. Townsend <blakkheim@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Wed 11 Sep 2024 02:18:26
Install Date    : Sat 19 Oct 2024 18:26:28
Install Reason  : Explicitly installed
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature

I followed the instructions in the link and installed Kernel 61, rebooted the system and ‘Lo and Behold’ the system booted into the Cinnamon desktop… Finally success
I’m surprised that an upgrade of the Kernel fixed my issue!?

I do have a usb with a bootable Manjaro (I updated it to the latest version a few day ago) I used the Manjaro recommended app ‘ImageWriter’ but I have heard of ‘Ventoy’ but never used it. I also have on another usb ‘Rescuezilla’ to make full backup images. With Ventoy I could have both on the same usb? sound good.
While the pc is booting now, not everything is working 100% I expected ‘Virtualbox’ to have errors (as stated in the release notes) but I new what to do to fix it, so that’s fine, but there are other little issues/bugs - like when I open ‘Root Filemanager’ the window to enter the password did not render correctly (white, not text at all), and in ‘Pamac’ I have ‘mhwd-nvidia-470xx’ yet when I looked for available drivers only ‘390xx’ came up? Is there a command to check for ‘cobwebs’ and clean up the system?

Actually I never did that… Each time I TTY into the system, I just edited the grub file (add a 3) to get a prompt.
Thanks to all for your help - beside getting my pc back, I learned a few commands (chroot, TTY, etc…) I will endeavor to get more familiar with the terminal and start using ‘timeshift’

16

Was that a question?

Then you don’t need to be concerned with it. That’s why I asked to verify it in case it was misreported. All is good.

Sometimes a newer kernel will be the answer. There’s no surprise, really, though admittedly it can often be a gamble on very old machines as to whether it will help or not.

Probably not what you have in mind; no simple clean sweep, but there are always tools to use for different purposes. Here are a few links to get you started:

And the Arch Wiki can also be a useful resource. The easiest is to use a search engine: arch pacman for example; The Arch Wiki is often more indepth.

For the other issues it’s probably best to open a new support thread if needed.

Here’s the Ventoy information as promised.

Ventoy

Create a Ventoy USB (ISO Launcher)

Boot with a Ventoy USB, and ISO files are automatically listed in the Ventoy menu, and can be booted directly. A 32GB capacity USB should allow ample space to store several ISOs of your choice; an 8GB capacity USB might hold one, or two ISO’s; do the math.

Ventoy is available from the official Manjaro extra repository:

sudo pacman -S ventoy
Ventoy Usage:

Type ventoy (without arguments) to see usage information:

Usage:  Ventoy2Disk.sh CMD [ OPTION ] /dev/sdX  
 CMD:  
  -i  install Ventoy to sdX (fails if disk already installed with Ventoy)  
  -I  force install Ventoy to sdX (no matter if installed or not)  
  -u  update Ventoy in sdX  
  -l  list Ventoy information in sdX  
  
 OPTION: (optional)  
  -r SIZE_MB  preserve some space at the bottom of the disk (only for install)  
  -s/-S       enable/disable secure boot support (default is enabled)  
  -g          use GPT partition style, default is MBR (only for install)  
  -L          Label of the 1st exfat partition (default is Ventoy)  
  -n          try non-destructive installation (only for install)

Create a Ventoy USB for BIOS mode booting:

sudo sh ventoy -i -r 100 -S -L VOLUME /dev/sdX

Creating the Ventoy USB (for UEFI booting):

Write the Ventoy system to an empty USB drive;
use /dev/sdX to target the device itself, and not a partition:

sudo sh ventoy -i -r 100 -S -g -L VOLUME /dev/sdX
  • Enable -s or disable -S Secure Boot.
  • Substitute VOLUME for a volume label name to use.
  • Substitute /dev/sdX for the location of your USB device.
  • Preserve some space on the target device (example allows 100mb).

Updating the Ventoy USB:

Update the Ventoy system on an existing Ventoy USB;
ensure the updated Ventoy version is available in Manjaro; and then:

sudo ventoy -u /dev/sdX
  • The Ventoy USB update process is non-destructive.

See also: Ventoy (GitHub); Ventoy (Site).

17

Thanks for all the links and advice - very informative. I will use ‘timeshift’ and ‘rescuezilla’ before ravaging in my system

1 Like
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