Want to mess with linux, need help

NeonCancerCandy · Jan 29, 2016

Let me start off by saying that i'm pretty good with windows and easily consider myself a power user.

with linux? i'm a total noob. But i learn fast and i want to get into it.

So, where i'm at now:

Downloaded lInux Mint with Cinnamon 17.3 x64
Put on USB drive
Installed it on my 3rd hard drive (duel boot. 2 hard drives for windows, a 3rd for linux. 750gb)
booted, tried to update graphics driver through the program built into it (recommended nvidia drivers)
restart
over and over boot error ACPI PCC probe failed. wouldn't boot. hung at that screen.
cleared hard drive and reinstalled 17.3
booted into the now fresh 17.3 and tried to update the drivers based on a youtube video using the command promt thing?
something about sudo getcurrent nvida i cant remember
wouldn't boot, hung at black screen, no errors

At this point i get frustrated and clear the hard drive again and say screw it.

but now it's a couple days later and here i am making this thread.

SO!

based upon my specs listed in my sig is Mint 17.3 a good choice? i just kind of picked a popular distro at random.
can you tell me how to install the graphics driver so it actually works?
it'll boot without any driver updates but it said it's running on cpu graphics and isn't recommended

thanks!

Stratus_ss · Jan 29, 2016

NeonCancerCandy said:
Let me start off by saying that i'm pretty good with windows and easily consider myself a power user.

<SNIP>

based upon my specs listed in my sig is Mint 17.3 a good choice? i just kind of picked a popular distro at random.
can you tell me how to install the graphics driver so it actually works?
it'll boot without any driver updates but it said it's running on cpu graphics and isn't recommended

thanks!

So Mint has made a huge effort to make sure its users do not have to open a terminal for most things. I personally love Mint (though I don't use it on a daily basis) I donate every year to them. I put it on my In-laws computers (plural) and haven't had a problem in years. That said they run low to mid-ranged nvidia cards.

Try using their utility. If you go to the Mint Menu and type "Drivers" you should see the driver manager. It will take a few minutes to scan your hardware, then it will make recommendations for which drivers it thinks you should use versus those which are already in use.

The ACPI PCC error just indicates that when trying to load a driver, the system couldn't find any hardware that uses the driver. This is because Mint tries to work "out of the box" so it will load as many of the common config options as it thinks necessary to give you the best experience. (in very basic terms)

NeonCancerCandy · Jan 29, 2016

Stratus_ss said:
Try using their utility. If you go to the Mint Menu and type "Drivers" you should see the driver manager. It will take a few minutes to scan your hardware, then it will make recommendations for which drivers it thinks you should use versus those which are already in use.

The ACPI PCC error just indicates that when trying to load a driver, the system couldn't find any hardware that uses the driver. This is because Mint tries to work "out of the box" so it will load as many of the common config options as it thinks necessary to give you the best experience. (in very basic terms)

when i used the drivers utility in mint, it showed up a choice between 3 nvidia drivers. the top one said recommended and i think was an official nvidia driver. after i chose that it installed. asked me to restart, so i did. then i got the acpi error upon loading and wouldn't go past that.

DNRDustin · Jan 29, 2016

NeonCancerCandy said:
when i used the drivers utility in mint, it showed up a choice between 3 nvidia drivers. the top one said recommended and i think was an official nvidia driver. after i chose that it installed. asked me to restart, so i did. then i got the acpi error upon loading and wouldn't go past that.

Is it driver 352.xx ending in (proprietary, tested)? Have you updated everything else prior to installing video drivers, or just straight to the video driver?

Stratus_ss · Jan 29, 2016

Do you see a boot menu (grub) when you turn the computer on or is it hidden? If it is hidden hold shift as your computer is posting. It should show you something like this:

Obviously yours would say Mint and the numbers would be different.

If you hit 'e' look for a line that looks like this:

And delete the part I have highlighted in red (on your system it may say 'rhgb quiet splash') delete these works and then hit ctrl+x to boot. This will show you on what step the computer is freezing

This menu is very powerful and can do things like disable the proprietary drivers during boot to give you access to the system again. No need to reinstall (unless you want to...)

NeonCancerCandy · Jan 29, 2016

DNRDustin said:
Is it driver 352.xx ending in (proprietary, tested)? Have you updated everything else prior to installing video drivers, or just straight to the video driver?

first time around i installed, and then went straight for the driver program built into mint. the first (only) driver it showed me at that time was the nvidia driver. I don't remember the eact details for it though.

the 2nd time i did an update to the system first i think? i'm not sure i watched a youtube video about it and just typed what it said.

Stratus_ss said:
Do you see a boot menu (grub) when you turn the computer on or is it hidden? If it is hidden hold shift as your computer is posting. It should show you something like this:

Obviously yours would say Mint and the numbers would be different.

If you hit 'e' look for a line that looks like this:

And delete the part I have highlighted in red (on your system it may say 'rhgb quiet splash') delete these works and then hit ctrl+x to boot. This will show you on what step the computer is freezing

This menu is very powerful and can do things like disable the proprietary drivers during boot to give you access to the system again. No need to reinstall (unless you want to...)

It was hidden.

I can't even get it to reinstall now (i had formatted the hard drive back to windows so i need to reinstall it now), every time i load into the USB bootable version to install it, it freezes mid install and my computer restarts.
Maybe my usb drive is corrupt.
kinda frustrated over this

DNRDustin · Jan 29, 2016

NeonCancerCandy said:
first time around i installed, and then went straight for the driver program built into mint. the first (only) driver it showed me at that time was the nvidia driver. I don't remember the eact details for it though.

the 2nd time i did an update to the system first i think? i'm not sure i watched a youtube video about it and just typed what it said.

It was hidden.

I can't even get it to reinstall now, every time i load into the USB bootable version to install it, it freezes mid install and my computer restarts.
Maybe my usb drive is corrupt.
kinda frustrated over this

Don't get frustrated. I got into linux because I had a frankensteined rig full of failing hardware unable to run windows any longer. After a lot of tweaking I finally got ubuntu loaded up and that pc limped along for another year. This is the fun part, you'll get it figured out if you keep hackin away at it.

Stratus_ss · Jan 29, 2016

NeonCancerCandy said:
first time around i installed, and then went straight for the driver program built into mint. the first (only) driver it showed me at that time was the nvidia driver. I don't remember the eact details for it though.

the 2nd time i did an update to the system first i think? i'm not sure i watched a youtube video about it and just typed what it said.

It was hidden.

I can't even get it to reinstall now, every time i load into the USB bootable version to install it, it freezes mid install and my computer restarts.
Maybe my usb drive is corrupt.
kinda frustrated over this

I don't blame you. Its hard to say what the problem is at this point without doing a deep dive. You could try say Ubuntu 15.10 (any of the variants... Gnome, xubuntu, kubuntu or MATE) they have more up to date kernels (though Mint is going to be updating theirs in the future.)

I suspect that xubuntu or MATE editions will work the best as they are designed for low resource machines. (not that you have low specs)... If it is indeed the video drivers giving you problems one of the spins with lower requirements may help mitigate this.

Its also possible that you need to update your intel micro-code (its just a package install). The Arch Wiki has some good information about what and why. Obviously for Mint the install instructions are different. You can try

Code:

sudo apt-get install intel-microcode

Before doing the installation (or afterwards if you have a bootable installation)

EDIT: Yes it is possible that either the ISO is corrupt or you have a bad "burn". You can check the download by running an md5sum against the iso (dont know how to do this in Windows... sorry) and compare it to the download screen. There is a column that says MD5... if the numbers match then the download completed properly and you may have a bad USB burn (which has been known to happen)

EDIT 2: I have a USB stick that freezes up if I have been using it too long... its a Kingston and its garbage

NeonCancerCandy · Jan 29, 2016

setting up a different USB stick now.
will report back with results after

NeonCancerCandy · Jan 29, 2016

okay so new USB solved.

mint 17.3 now installed and boots fine (posting this from mint currently)

Okay so i opened the driver manager program and it shows

nvidia-352 (recommended)
Version 352.63-0unbuntu0.14.04.1
NVIDIA binary driver - version 352.63

xserver-xorg-video-nouveau (open-source)
version 1:1.0.10-1ubuntu2
X.Org X Server - Nouveau display driver

Nvidia-352-Updates
Version 352.63-0unbuntu0.14.04.1
NVIDIA binary driver - version 352.63

the first one is the one i used before that gave me the acpi error

what should i do?

edit 1*
i downloaded the driver from the nvida website as well, that one is newer. 352.79
didnt install it though

edit 2*

just did this in the terminal

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

the upgrade part is running atm, seems to be updating a lot of stuff

Edit 3*

that^ finished and after a reboot it still says i'm running in "software rende5ring mode" so i assume it didnt update the graphics driver.
but whatever it did update didnt break anything.

Edit 4*

updated the micro code using the terminal command. no issues.

Edit 5*

it seems that the open source driver i posted above is the one that's currently installed.

Stratus_ss · Jan 29, 2016

So at this point I would try the recommended driver at this point

NeonCancerCandy · Jan 29, 2016

wont load the xserver (gui)

still loads terminal (what you get when you press ctrl+alt+f1)

i tried holding shift while booting, it didn't seem to do anything at all

knoober · Jan 29, 2016

if you can get a terminal at startup the try "sudo startx" without the quotes. It might start the gui for you, I say might because I dont know why you are getting that error. Im new to Linux as well

Why are you trying to update your drivers though? I think Mint will choose the best one it has access to right out of the box. I wouldnt mess with it unless you arent getting the functions you want ? I know that isnt how Windows works , but thats always how Ive had to be in Linux

edit: Also, if you want to check that log file it directs to, the command will look something like: sudo nano /path/to/file

there are other text views/editors like vi, its kind of a "take your pick" situation. Use what you are comfortable using.

NeonCancerCandy · Jan 29, 2016

knoober said:
if you can get a terminal at startup the try "sudo startx" without the quotes. It might start the gui for you, I say might because I dont know why you are getting that error. Im new to Linux as well

Why are you trying to update your drivers though? I think Mint will choose the best one it has access to right out of the box. I wouldnt mess with it unless you arent getting the functions you want ? I know that isnt how Windows works , but thats always how Ive had to be in Linux

edit: Also, if you want to check that log file it directs to, the command will look something like: sudo nano /path/to/file

there are other text views/editors like vi, its kind of a "take your pick" situation. Use what you are comfortable using.

if i try the startx thing (which is the same as ctrl+alt+f7 right?) it says something about the MDM needing to be corrected

the graphics card driver needs to be updated because mint wasn't even using my graphics card, it was using my cpu's igpu.

knoober · Jan 29, 2016

I really couldnt say if its the same as ctl + alt + f7 . what I do know is that the GUI needs the "xserver" to run and startx will perform that function. No idea of what MDM is sorry.

Anything usefull in the log?

I dont wonder if you would have to tell linux to use the GPU instead of the iGPU instead of getting the driver. Just a guess, I hope the other guys can give you better help

NeonCancerCandy · Jan 29, 2016

Problem solved.
Graphics drivers updated

solution found on a youtube video:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

blacklist amd76x_edac
blacklist vga16fb
blacklist nouveau
blacklist rivafb
blacklist nvidiafb
blacklist rivatv

sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia*

cd ~/Downloads

sudo chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-352.79.run

sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-352.79.run

sudo nvidia-xconfig

sudo reboot

knoober · Jan 29, 2016

Now the real trick is of course to figure out what all that crap is. Im sure they told you in the video , but Id like to know why they had you blacklist all those drivers. Must be for the iGPU ?

then you set permissions for the file - ran the file - configured and reboot. Still confused as to the blacklisting...

One of the most helpfull things you can do for yourself in Linux is to find where all the stuff is. There are a number of utilities built in (I believe modprobe is for checking what drivers are running + other stuff) and the directory structure. Directory structure and built in utilities like modprobe/fdisk/dpkg is the kind of stuff that will be the same/similar between versions.

NeonCancerCandy · Jan 29, 2016

he said in the video it was because linux doesn't know how to handle nvida drivers that well and the black list was to make sure you never installed the wrong drivers again

NeonCancerCandy · Jan 29, 2016

this was the video:

Evil-Mobo · Jan 29, 2016

Glad you're up and running enjoy :thup:

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