this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2025
17 points (94.7% liked)

Linux

59737 readers
850 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
nooter692@lemmy.ml
AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml
cypherpunks@lemmy.ml
cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz
17
Mint USB boots black screen (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.works to c/linux@lemmy.ml
21 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hello, not much of a Linux user (situations like this are why)...but long story short, I'm trying to rehab a ROG PC from 2018.

I made a bootable USB of the current Mint distro, but booting leads to a black screen. I tried compatibility mode, but the boot process hangs on "EFI stub: Measured initrd data into PCR 9"

The PC came with an Nvidia 2080, but it's actually a 980ti. Also there isn't integrated graphics here. Any troubleshooting advice would be cool

Update: if I select recovery mode then 'resume normal boot', Mint 21 works. However, this computer will be a gift to a tech-illiterate person, so that level of input will not suffice. I installed the recommended (and correct) Nvidia driver, but the results are the same

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

e: just saw your edits, you don't need to do any of this, you can just look at your journal with 'sudo journalctl' from a terminal (or whatever GUI app Mint ships with)

Did the install complete and then you rebooted and it failed?

This is progress! Presumably, when your system tried to boot it would be writing information to a log that we can read. With your fancy new sysrescuecd, you can boot into a live environment and read that log.

We'll need to use the sysrescuecd live environment to mount your hard drive and read the log.

Start sysrescuecd, startx, and open a terminal.

Make a directory

mkdir mint-root

Find the device for your system's root partition. Run

lsblk

You'll see a list of things like sda, sdb, nvme0n1. If you're using a M.2 drive it'll probably be nvme0n1. Under that it will list the partitions (ex. nvme0n1p1). Your system partition should be the largest one but I don't know Mint's default partition layout. If there are multiple we can check them all, so just choose the most likely one.

Once you've found the right device you can mount it to the folder you created (you're already root, you don't need sudo):

mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 mint-root

Now if you look in that directory (ls mint-root), you should see a bunch of directories like /bin, /dev, /sys, /usr, /var. If so, this is your system drive. If not and you see a directory named after the user your created when you installed mint, go back and choose the other partition, this is just a home partition.

Assuming you have your system partition, now you can look at the logs:

journalctl --directory=mint-root/var/log/journal

This viewer uses vim-like controls, so j to go down and k to go up. Page Up and Page Down should also work (probably mouse scrolling too if you're in a GUI terminal).

The thing that caused the problem should be in the last few lines.