Linux Mint wont install. Black Screen

LinuxNoob1226

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Hey All,
My computer's specs. CPU Intel 4690k
Motherboard: MSI z97 Gaming 5
16 gb Ram
Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit
Geforce gtx 970 GPU

I'm trying to install Linux Mint on a separate hard drive. I'm a total beginner to Linux but not technically illiterate. I have installed Linux Mint on a friends computer already and it seemed pretty flawless.

I decided it would be nice to have Linux on a separate hard drive on my computer. I use Windows 10 on my SSD, but bought another drive that I was planning to dedicate solely to Linux.

I downloaded the Linux Mint Cinnamon 64 Bit to my hard drive. Installed Rufus and used it to mount the ISO to a USB thumb drive. Changed the Boot Order in the Bios to boot from the Thumb Drive- A splash screen comes up and asks me if I want to load linux mint, LM compatibility mode, etc.. I choose Linux Mint and the screen goes to black and never comes back. After about 15 seconds of hanging there, my monitor shuts off and lets me know that there is no signal present. It never comes back , but after about 1 minute , I do hear the Linux Chime. I only know this because on my friends computer, once Linux loads, that same Chime is heard. However, my computers monitor says no signal is present and I can't see anything.

This lead me to check online for people with similar problems. First people wrote that you need to be in legacy mode and not UEFI. I tried to do this from my bios, but my only options are UEFI or UEFI + LEGACY, so I left it on UEFI + LEGACY. (If there is a way to get it into pure legacy mode, I don't know how to do it)

They recommended turning off fast boot. My fast boot was already disabled.

Then I came across a forum post about adding a line of text to the boot command "nvidia.modeset=0" and to reboot but that didn't seem to help.

I'm not really sure what else to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike
 


UEFI is okay, but you may need to disable Secure Boot in the UEFI settings.

The Nvidia trick is still the likely solution. Try again booting the USB, but interrupt the boot and try adding "nomodeset" (without the quotes) next to "quiet" and "no splash" and then F10 to resume booting.

I'm at work so trying to pull this out of memory... not my strong point.
 
Well, you're a genius. That worked to help me get on to the linux live environment from the USB. I added nomodeset like you said and did not bother to add the extra nvidia parameter to it and it loaded right up and let me see everything I was doing.

I disconnected my other drives before doing this so that I didn't have to worry about messing something up when it asked me about which drive to select, and then get in to the whole partitioning / setting free space, setting up root directories, etc- that I was sure to mess up. This way I just selected the erase everything and install linux to the only drive available. I checked on the option that said to install 3rd party drivers for my devices and I made sure my internet connection worked. This is where I thought my GPU hang up issue would go away. Unfortunately, It didn't

Once I installed everything, I took the usb stick out and booted directly to my hard disk with the new linux operating system added. Unfortunately, the exact same issue occurs that had been happening earlier. It's as if I need to permanently add that " nomodeset" line of code to boot into the installed OS as well? Though I'm not sure how to do that exactly.

I put the USB drive back in, added the nomodeset to the command line and got back into the linux mint live environment from the USB. I looked for Drivers to add and found the one for my nvidia geforce 970x. It recommended I select an option that it was not defaulted on. I did and it started downloading and installing the drivers , though I'm not sure if those changes take affect since I'm just in the USB live environment---

Anyways, I tried that- Took out the USB, Booted to the Linux disk and No luck. Monitor shows No signal again and I can't boot up. Any other genius rabbits up your sleeve for this one possible?

Thanks much again
Mike
 
Okay, you've almost got it. You're exactly right... you need to add that command to your hard drive start up. I can't pull the details out of memory, but do a quick Google search for "add nomodeset to grub in Linux Mint" and I think you will get good instructions. You will basically boot the USB, modify a text file on the hard drive, and reboot. You may need to run the update-grub command, but Google should make this clear. Let us know if you get stuck though. Good luck!
 
Thanks for your continued help.

I've tried to do that. I have found articles on modifying the text of the grub. I added the line exactly where I should and how I should. The problem occurs when I go to update the grub- It doesn't let me. I've searched on google for people experiencing similar problems and all I've found is people saying that you can't write in the live environment and that a sudo update grub execute only works on the installed version of Linux. Which, doesn't help me much since I can't get to the installed version to write that code, until I ............add that code so I can get to the installed version. It's a vicious cycle it seems :) Ugh. So Frustrating. Any suggestions?

Thanks so much again.
 
OK, I probably steered you wrong about booting on USB first... sorry. Let's try this again.

It's possible that when you try to boot on your hard drive that it goes straight into Mint (with the black screen) and does not show you the grub menu. If so, the usual trick here is to boot up, and after the BIOS splash screen clears, hold the SHIFT key down. I'm not sure if you hold continuous or hold a second, release, and hold again type of operation... but the idea is to see your grub bootloader menu. It's similar to the USB boot menu, but not quite the same. If the SHIFT key doesn't seem to work, you might try SPACE or TAB.

If you get that, I think you hit "e" (no quotes) to get into "edit" so you can insert nomodeset, just like you did with the USB.

If that all works, F10 or whatever you need to finish booting the hard drive, and hopefully you see the screen.

Then its time to edit the grub configuration... open a terminal and then use this:

Code:
sudo nano /etc/default/grub

You'll have to enter your password (you won't see any response... so type carefully and hit Enter)

Nano is a very basic text editor. Arrow to where you see "quiet splash" and make it looks like "quiet splash nomodeset".

When it looks good, Hit CNTL-O (then Enter) to save the file, and then CNTL-X to exit.

Then, very important is to do this:

Code:
sudo update-grub

Exit and reboot, and I think it will be working (famous last words). There may be other, better ways to solve this... but usually nomodeset is a quick and easy fix. So, let's see if I steered you right this time.
 
@LinuxNoob1226

Welcome to linux.org.

If atanere’s method above works, yippe ai ay kayay, problem solved.

If not, or for the benefit of The Viewers, you CAN modify and update your Grub file from removable media and get the changes to stick. The preferred method is using a command called

Code:
chroot

Simply put, chroot allows you to enjoy Administrative Privileges not just on your removable medium, but on a System that is regarded as remote, in this case, your hard drive. Subject to what you load (mount) with it, you can perform certain actions as if you had logged directly into the remote system.

First up. Boot from your USB stick. Once into the Live session, Go to Menu and type in “gparted” and press enter. This opens the GNOME Partition Editor.

Depending on whether you have your Windows also connected, this may show a number of entries, likely beginning with /dev/sda.

The one we are looking for is the one which has a File System of ext4, and usage will likely be around 6 GiB or a little more. In my case, I have Linux Mint 18.2 ‘Sonya’ Cinnamon on /dev/sda12.

Make a note of where you find it. This is your (small r) root partition, often referred to as /

This is where the majority of your system software is housed. Depending on your method of install (guided or manual/other), you may or may not have a separate /dev/boot partition (modern method is to have simply a /boot folder in your root) – if one exists, note it.

Exit GParted. In the following I place comments with a # in front of them. Simply enter the textual commands that are not commented.

find Terminal (Hint – Ctrl-Alt-t) and enter there

Code:
sudo mount /dev/sdXY  /mnt # /dev/sdXY is your root partition, e.g. /dev/sda1 (what you noted from GParted, mine is /dev/sda12)

If, and only if, you have a separate boot partition, you’ll need to mount it also:

Code:
sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/boot

We then mount some virtual filesystems, as follows and in order:

Code:
for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys /run; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done

With the above command, for -B you could use --bind (that’s a double dash before bind), doesn’t matter. Also, you’ll note that in Live mode, we may still need to use sudo, but it does not require a password there.

Finally, chroot enters the picture, and your command line prompt will alter:

Code:
sudo chroot /mnt

NOW you can do grub-install or update-grub and other remedial tasks and it'll operate on your installed system rather than the LiveCD/USB.



A little confusing is that, once chrooted, a part of our command line prompt changes from a $ to a #



I have illustrated mine below

mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount /dev/sda12 /mnt

mint@mint ~ $ sudo chroot /mnt

root@mint / # ls

bin dev initrd.img lib64 mnt root srv usr vmlinuz.old

boot etc initrd.img.old lost+found opt run sys var

cdrom home lib media proc sbin tmp vmlinuz

root@mint / # nano /etc/default/grub

root@mint / # exit

mint@mint ~ $ for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys /run; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done


I just run the ls (list contents) command to check that I am where I want to be.

nano /etc/default/grub … is where you follow the atanere suggestion re inserting nomodeset.

Back into chroot then, and we’ll run update-grub, Mine is in the Spoiler

mint@mint ~ $ sudo chroot /mnt

root@mint / # update-grub

Generating grub configuration file ...

Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.10.0-33-generic

Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.10.0-33-generic

Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.8.0-53-generic

Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.8.0-53-generic

Found Linux Mint 18 Sarah (18) on /dev/sda1

Found Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya (18.2) on /dev/sda10

Found Zorin OS 12.2 (12) on /dev/sda11

Found Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (16.04) on /dev/sda13

Found Gentoo Base System release 2.2 on /dev/sda14

Found Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa (17.3) on /dev/sda15

Found Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca (17.1) on /dev/sda16

Found Point Linux 3.2 (agni) (3.2) on /dev/sda18

Found Peppermint 7 Seven (7) on /dev/sda19

Found Linux Mint 18 Sarah (18) on /dev/sda20

Found Linux Mint 18 Sarah (18) on /dev/sda21

Found SharkLinux (16.04) on /dev/sda22

Found Linux Mint 18 Sarah (18) on /dev/sda23

Found Bodhi Linux (16.04) on /dev/sda24

Found LMDE 2 Betsy (2) on /dev/sda25

Found Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (16.04) on /dev/sda26

Found Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (16.04) on /dev/sda27

Found Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya (18.2) on /dev/sda28

Found MX-16 Metamorphosis (16) on /dev/sda29

Found Netrunner 17.06 (17.06) on /dev/sda30

Found Linux Mint 18.1 Serena (18.1) on /dev/sda31

Found PCLinuxOS on /dev/sda32

Found LXLE Eclectica 16.04.2 64bit (16.04) on /dev/sda33

Found Linux Mint 18.1 Serena (18.1) on /dev/sda34

Found Maui (17.03) on /dev/sda35

Found unknown Linux distribution on /dev/sda36

Found Ubuntu 17.04 (17.04) on /dev/sda37

Found Ubuntu 17.04 (17.04) on /dev/sda38

Found Mageia 6 (6) on /dev/sda39

Found Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (16.04) on /dev/sda4

Found Linux Mint 18.1 Serena (18.1) on /dev/sda40

Found antiX 16 (16) on /dev/sda6

Found Linux Mint 18.1 Serena (18.1) on /dev/sda7

Found Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa (17.3) on /dev/sda8

Found Kali GNU/Linux Rolling (kali-rolling) on /dev/sda9

done

root@mint / #

Your output will be considerably shorter, I run a lot of Linux.

Code:
root@mint / # exit

At this point, you could exit all the way out of the chroot process (using “exit” or Ctrl-D) and reboot, but I err on the side of caution, and unmount what I have mounted.

I enter the following lines one at a time and press Enter between them

Code:
mint@mint ~ $ sudo umount /mnt/dev/pts
mint@mint ~ $ sudo umount /mnt/dev
mint@mint ~ $ sudo umount /mnt/proc
mint@mint ~ $ sudo umount /mnt/sys
mint@mint ~ $ sudo umount /mnt/run

I have to do the first line before the second line (ie in reverse order of how I mounted them). If not I will get an obscure error as follows:

Code:
mint@mint ~ $ sudo umount /mnt/dev
umount: /mnt/dev: target is busy
        (In some cases useful info about processes that
         use the device is found by lsof(8) or fuser(1).)

Now that I am out, I can safely reboot the computer (removing the USB stick if you have it set to auto boot), and hopefully your nvidia problem is remedied for the time being.

Cheers

Wizard
 
OK, I probably steered you wrong about booting on USB first... sorry. Let's try this again.

It's possible that when you try to boot on your hard drive that it goes straight into Mint (with the black screen) and does not show you the grub menu. If so, the usual trick here is to boot up, and after the BIOS splash screen clears, hold the SHIFT key down. I'm not sure if you hold continuous or hold a second, release, and hold again type of operation... but the idea is to see your grub bootloader menu. It's similar to the USB boot menu, but not quite the same. If the SHIFT key doesn't seem to work, you might try SPACE or TAB.

If you get that, I think you hit "e" (no quotes) to get into "edit" so you can insert nomodeset, just like you did with the USB.

If that all works, F10 or whatever you need to finish booting the hard drive, and hopefully you see the screen.

Then its time to edit the grub configuration... open a terminal and then use this:

Code:
sudo nano /etc/default/grub

You'll have to enter your password (you won't see any response... so type carefully and hit Enter)

Nano is a very basic text editor. Arrow to where you see "quiet splash" and make it looks like "quiet splash nomodeset".

When it looks good, Hit CNTL-O (then Enter) to save the file, and then CNTL-X to exit.

Then, very important is to do this:

Code:
sudo update-grub

Exit and reboot, and I think it will be working (famous last words). There may be other, better ways to solve this... but usually nomodeset is a quick and easy fix. So, let's see if I steered you right this time.

Perfect! I owe you a case of Duff Beer (simpson's reference that I'm sure you already picked up on!) Thanks so much for your help. All the steps you mentioned worked like a charm and I am now writing to you from my brand new linux mint operating system. Love the feel of linux already and I'm having a lot of fun tinkering around and perfecting things.

The only issue I have no is with my gaming keyboard. Most of the time it will not register any keystrokes at all. It is a Corsair k65 RGB keyboard. I got it working a few times with LM, even though I didn't do anything at all. 90 % of the time It doesn't work, no lights, nothing. I looked online and read a trick that works for others with the same problem is adding the line i8042.dumbkbd=1 after the quiet splash line in the grub editor. I've found the only thing that this does for me is makes it so my keyboard's lights go from being off to staying on - But no responsiveness from the keys.

I feel bad as though I'm sort of nit picking here. I have a much more basic keyboard that I plugged in and am typing this to you on and it works just fine. It would be nice to not have to switch keyboard every time I switch between operating systems but It's a minor inconvenience at best and I guess I can just live with it.

Thanks again so much for your help. I was at my wit's end and about to give up on Linux altogether until getting your help. Good karma coming your way!

Mike
 
@LinuxNoob1226

Welcome to linux.org.

If atanere’s method above works, yippe ai ay kayay, problem solved.

If not, or for the benefit of The Viewers, you CAN modify and update your Grub file from removable media and get the changes to stick. The preferred method is using a command called

Code:
chroot

Simply put, chroot allows you to enjoy Administrative Privileges not just on your removable medium, but on a System that is regarded as remote, in this case, your hard drive. Subject to what you load (mount) with it, you can perform certain actions as if you had logged directly into the remote system.

First up. Boot from your USB stick. Once into the Live session, Go to Menu and type in “gparted” and press enter. This opens the GNOME Partition Editor.

Depending on whether you have your Windows also connected, this may show a number of entries, likely beginning with /dev/sda.

The one we are looking for is the one which has a File System of ext4, and usage will likely be around 6 GiB or a little more. In my case, I have Linux Mint 18.2 ‘Sonya’ Cinnamon on /dev/sda12.

Make a note of where you find it. This is your (small r) root partition, often referred to as /

This is where the majority of your system software is housed. Depending on your method of install (guided or manual/other), you may or may not have a separate /dev/boot partition (modern method is to have simply a /boot folder in your root) – if one exists, note it.

Exit GParted. In the following I place comments with a # in front of them. Simply enter the textual commands that are not commented.

find Terminal (Hint – Ctrl-Alt-t) and enter there

Code:
sudo mount /dev/sdXY  /mnt # /dev/sdXY is your root partition, e.g. /dev/sda1 (what you noted from GParted, mine is /dev/sda12)

If, and only if, you have a separate boot partition, you’ll need to mount it also:

Code:
sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/boot

We then mount some virtual filesystems, as follows and in order:

Code:
for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys /run; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done

With the above command, for -B you could use --bind (that’s a double dash before bind), doesn’t matter. Also, you’ll note that in Live mode, we may still need to use sudo, but it does not require a password there.

Finally, chroot enters the picture, and your command line prompt will alter:

Code:
sudo chroot /mnt

NOW you can do grub-install or update-grub and other remedial tasks and it'll operate on your installed system rather than the LiveCD/USB.



A little confusing is that, once chrooted, a part of our command line prompt changes from a $ to a #



I have illustrated mine below

mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount /dev/sda12 /mnt

mint@mint ~ $ sudo chroot /mnt

root@mint / # ls

bin dev initrd.img lib64 mnt root srv usr vmlinuz.old

boot etc initrd.img.old lost+found opt run sys var

cdrom home lib media proc sbin tmp vmlinuz

root@mint / # nano /etc/default/grub

root@mint / # exit

mint@mint ~ $ for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys /run; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done


I just run the ls (list contents) command to check that I am where I want to be.

nano /etc/default/grub … is where you follow the atanere suggestion re inserting nomodeset.

Back into chroot then, and we’ll run update-grub, Mine is in the Spoiler

mint@mint ~ $ sudo chroot /mnt

root@mint / # update-grub

Generating grub configuration file ...

Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.10.0-33-generic

Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.10.0-33-generic

Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.8.0-53-generic

Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.8.0-53-generic

Found Linux Mint 18 Sarah (18) on /dev/sda1

Found Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya (18.2) on /dev/sda10

Found Zorin OS 12.2 (12) on /dev/sda11

Found Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (16.04) on /dev/sda13

Found Gentoo Base System release 2.2 on /dev/sda14

Found Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa (17.3) on /dev/sda15

Found Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca (17.1) on /dev/sda16

Found Point Linux 3.2 (agni) (3.2) on /dev/sda18

Found Peppermint 7 Seven (7) on /dev/sda19

Found Linux Mint 18 Sarah (18) on /dev/sda20

Found Linux Mint 18 Sarah (18) on /dev/sda21

Found SharkLinux (16.04) on /dev/sda22

Found Linux Mint 18 Sarah (18) on /dev/sda23

Found Bodhi Linux (16.04) on /dev/sda24

Found LMDE 2 Betsy (2) on /dev/sda25

Found Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (16.04) on /dev/sda26

Found Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (16.04) on /dev/sda27

Found Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya (18.2) on /dev/sda28

Found MX-16 Metamorphosis (16) on /dev/sda29

Found Netrunner 17.06 (17.06) on /dev/sda30

Found Linux Mint 18.1 Serena (18.1) on /dev/sda31

Found PCLinuxOS on /dev/sda32

Found LXLE Eclectica 16.04.2 64bit (16.04) on /dev/sda33

Found Linux Mint 18.1 Serena (18.1) on /dev/sda34

Found Maui (17.03) on /dev/sda35

Found unknown Linux distribution on /dev/sda36

Found Ubuntu 17.04 (17.04) on /dev/sda37

Found Ubuntu 17.04 (17.04) on /dev/sda38

Found Mageia 6 (6) on /dev/sda39

Found Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (16.04) on /dev/sda4

Found Linux Mint 18.1 Serena (18.1) on /dev/sda40

Found antiX 16 (16) on /dev/sda6

Found Linux Mint 18.1 Serena (18.1) on /dev/sda7

Found Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa (17.3) on /dev/sda8

Found Kali GNU/Linux Rolling (kali-rolling) on /dev/sda9

done

root@mint / #

Your output will be considerably shorter, I run a lot of Linux.

Code:
root@mint / # exit

At this point, you could exit all the way out of the chroot process (using “exit” or Ctrl-D) and reboot, but I err on the side of caution, and unmount what I have mounted.

I enter the following lines one at a time and press Enter between them

Code:
mint@mint ~ $ sudo umount /mnt/dev/pts
mint@mint ~ $ sudo umount /mnt/dev
mint@mint ~ $ sudo umount /mnt/proc
mint@mint ~ $ sudo umount /mnt/sys
mint@mint ~ $ sudo umount /mnt/run

I have to do the first line before the second line (ie in reverse order of how I mounted them). If not I will get an obscure error as follows:

Code:
mint@mint ~ $ sudo umount /mnt/dev
umount: /mnt/dev: target is busy
        (In some cases useful info about processes that
         use the device is found by lsof(8) or fuser(1).)

Now that I am out, I can safely reboot the computer (removing the USB stick if you have it set to auto boot), and hopefully your nvidia problem is remedied for the time being.

Cheers

Wizard

Damn, what an absolute wealth of information you are. Thanks for taking the time to write all that out for me and anyone else that may end up encountering the same problem. One of the things I'm quickly learning about with Linux that maybe differs from Windows is that when 1 method may not work, there always seems to be another way.

Thanks again for your help and support here!
Mike
 
Perfect! I owe you a case of Duff Beer (simpson's reference that I'm sure you already picked up on!) Thanks so much for your help. All the steps you mentioned worked like a charm and I am now writing to you from my brand new linux mint operating system. Love the feel of linux already and I'm having a lot of fun tinkering around and perfecting things.

The only issue I have no is with my gaming keyboard. Most of the time it will not register any keystrokes at all. It is a Corsair k65 RGB keyboard. I got it working a few times with LM, even though I didn't do anything at all. 90 % of the time It doesn't work, no lights, nothing. I looked online and read a trick that works for others with the same problem is adding the line i8042.dumbkbd=1 after the quiet splash line in the grub editor. I've found the only thing that this does for me is makes it so my keyboard's lights go from being off to staying on - But no responsiveness from the keys.

I feel bad as though I'm sort of nit picking here. I have a much more basic keyboard that I plugged in and am typing this to you on and it works just fine. It would be nice to not have to switch keyboard every time I switch between operating systems but It's a minor inconvenience at best and I guess I can just live with it.

Thanks again so much for your help. I was at my wit's end and about to give up on Linux altogether until getting your help. Good karma coming your way!

Mike

In my best Homer voice: Mmmm, beer! :D Hey Mike, glad you got it going... and by the way, Welcome to the site! We all love Linux here, and we all remember that it can be hard to get started too. You'll have some successes along the way, and you'll probably have a few failures, but it is a fun journey and there is much to learn if you want it. You also noticed right away: there is almost always more than one way to do things in Linux.

About your keyboard... that is a driver problem. The Linux kernel has tons of built-in drivers for tons of hardware, but some things are not supported, or support comes quite late. The best hope with non-standard hardware is for the manufacturer to provide Linux drivers, but that doesn't always happen, as with Corsair in this case. Sometimes some smart people out there will create a compatible driver, and you have a chance to make your keyboard work with something called ckb-next. This will raise your geek level 10 points if you can make it work! :cool: I can't really help with it beyond pointing you to the project on github (click here)... you would download the zip file, unpack it, and carefully read the README.md file through a few times. Follow the Ubuntu Preparation instructions before following the Installation instructions. It also describes a kernel cmdline parameter that you might need to add for the K65, so don't miss that if the install doesn't work cleanly. This project is still actively developed, so there is continued hope for the Corsair products.

Before ckb-next was just plain ckb.... and there is a YouTube video (click here) that describes installing the older project. It's about 5 minutes long, but I didn't watch it. It may be helpful, but remember that it may no longer be accurate either.

Cheers!
 
@LinuxNoob1226 I've done a quick bit of duckduckgo-fu to see if I can find out something that might help with your keyboard situation and found this, which might help:
https://github.com/mattanger/ckb-next

It appears to be an open-source driver for corsair keyboards. Looks like it also has a GUI based configuration tool too. Your keyboard model is listed as supported. It might not be as functional as the proprietary Windows drivers, but it should at least be usable - from what I've read.


It looks like you'll have to build and install it from source, but the page does give a good set of instructions on how to do this. Hopefully, it shouldn't be too awkward to build.

Because you are running Mint - the instructions for Ubuntu should work nicely. The names of the packages to be installed in Mint should be exactly the same as Ubuntu, Debian etc..

Might be worth a shot!

[edit] Atanere got in there just before me! :/
 
@atanere & @JasKinasis

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction for some options to fix my issue(s) guys. I will try that this afternoon and report back if I was successful or not ( Which I will be). You put 10 geek level points up for grabs like that and there's virtually zero chance I don't aquire them :)

-Mike
 
One of the good things about time zone differences is that I can drink my morning coffee and be happy that someone has solved a problem over (my) night, and Kudos to atanere ;)

@LinuxNoob1226

Mike a couple of tips before I wreak havoc elsewhere:

  1. This article at the 3rd post down has some info on the Corsair, and given you have made the acquaintance of modifying Grub file, it may assist. The User got the details to insert from use of the Terminal command
    Code:
    lsusb
  2. It would be of value to all Gamers to start a thread here if you want to further explore the Corsair options (& you can always link to this thread for background)
  3. A useful command line utility for converting .rpm packages to .deb and vice versa is called "alien" and you can find it in the Repos of many Linux including your Linux Mint, in your Synaptic Package Manager, or else
    Code:
    sudo apt-get -y install alien
I found this latter utility invaluable for getting my old Dell colour laser printer (which had an .rpm on the install CD) to work under Ubuntu & Linux Mint &c.

Cheers all

Wizard
 
UEFI is okay, but you may need to disable Secure Boot in the UEFI settings.

The Nvidia trick is still the likely solution. Try again booting the USB, but interrupt the boot and try adding "nomodeset" (without the quotes) next to "quiet" and "no splash" and then F10 to resume booting.

I'm at work so trying to pull this out of memory... not my strong point.

I hope you may have time to help me. I don't consider myself computer illiterate, but obviously am compared to the OP. Where do you want me to enter "nomodeset" (without the quotes)?

When i press e to edit, the line appears as such:

linux /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/linuxmint.seed boot=casper iso-scan/filename=${iso_path} quiet splash --

Do you want me to put "nomodeset" in between "quiet" and "splash" so it looks like "quiet nomodeset splash" or do i put it in front of "quiet"?

The line says "splash" and not "no splash". Does that matter? Should I add "no" to "splash"?
 
Code:
nomodeset quiet splash

Hi @benmw1 and welcome to linux.org :)

If that works for you, fine :D

If not, just start up your own thread either here or in Getting Started preferably https://www.linux.org/forums/getting-started.148/

... put some good keywords in the Title that will help the cavalry zoom in eg "Linux Mint 18.3 dualboot with Win 8.1 install probs", you get the picture

I'm from DownUnder so nitey-nite :p

Don't worry we have your back

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
OK, I probably steered you wrong about booting on USB first... sorry. Let's try this again.

It's possible that when you try to boot on your hard drive that it goes straight into Mint (with the black screen) and does not show you the grub menu. If so, the usual trick here is to boot up, and after the BIOS splash screen clears, hold the SHIFT key down. I'm not sure if you hold continuous or hold a second, release, and hold again type of operation... but the idea is to see your grub bootloader menu. It's similar to the USB boot menu, but not quite the same. If the SHIFT key doesn't seem to work, you might try SPACE or TAB.

If you get that, I think you hit "e" (no quotes) to get into "edit" so you can insert nomodeset, just like you did with the USB.

If that all works, F10 or whatever you need to finish booting the hard drive, and hopefully you see the screen.

Then its time to edit the grub configuration... open a terminal and then use this:

Code:
sudo nano /etc/default/grub

You'll have to enter your password (you won't see any response... so type carefully and hit Enter)

Nano is a very basic text editor. Arrow to where you see "quiet splash" and make it looks like "quiet splash nomodeset".

When it looks good, Hit CNTL-O (then Enter) to save the file, and then CNTL-X to exit.

Then, very important is to do this:

Code:
sudo update-grub

Exit and reboot, and I think it will be working (famous last words). There may be other, better ways to solve this... but usually nomodeset is a quick and easy fix. So, let's see if I steered you right this time.
Where would i exactly type that in, ive made to the "press e to edit" Please help me im new to installing linux. Ive tried ubuntu,kali linux. All of them are stucked at black screen with a cursor
 
Hi @Kieren and welcome to linux.org :)

Which Linux are you trying currently? If you can us an exact name of the .iso you downloaded, I might be able to provide an example (eg ubuntu-mate-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso)

Also, specs on your computer would be of assistance.

Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 

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