#Linux mint booting back out to login menu

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

lime tangle
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I just installed the OS and every time i attempt to log in, I keep getting booted back out onto the login menu

Hardware:
Threadripper 1950X
Aorus Xtreme X399 Motherboard
GIGABYTE Radeon RX 7800 XT
250GB NVMe SSD - Boot drive, btrfs, 512MB partition for EFI boot partition
2TB NVMe SSD - /home/ (encrypted, btrfs)
2x 2TB NVMe SSD - Merged into single 4TB drive using software with btrfs

cloud horizon
cloud horizon
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do you know how to change to the Console directly?

lime tangle
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Yes, Linux mint 22 cinnamon, it boots up fine however upon entering password screen goes blank as if correct password and booted out to login

cloud horizon
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use the
ctrl + alt + fX
X can be 1 2 3 4 5 6

lime tangle
cloud horizon
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to enter the console, so you log into your account and we can make directly changes to it

lime tangle
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ah

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what do i do next?

cloud horizon
lime tangle
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yes

cloud horizon
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type
sudo systemctl status lightdm
it appears as running, dead or what

lime tangle
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aight

cloud horizon
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after entering the console you will enter with your account
nickname + password
otherwise you can have root access directly typing root into the username field

lime tangle
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alright then

cloud horizon
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@lime tangle what happened

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lightdm is a service that takes care of the login session and choose the DE if you have alternatives

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if it has problems you will be reloading it, I had problems with sddm and changed to lightdm, if the service itself has problems we can reload to see if it works or we can simply change to another service

lime tangle
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My power went out before i did the command 😢

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But if something it should just be the power supply going bonkers n it should come back on in a little bit

lime tangle
cloud horizon
# lime tangle But good to know about this to be fair

enter the console and type
sudo apt install --fix-broken
if some dependency is missing it will install, otherwise you can install another login manager
sudo apt install sddm
after installing it you will have to change
sudo systemctl disable lightdm
after that dont reboot before doing this command:
sudo systemctl enable sddm

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after enabling sddm you can reboot the pc typing reboot in the console

lime tangle
cloud horizon
lime tangle
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done, tho it only said 0 to upgrade, install or remove and 28 not to upgrade

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_> the worse part is that this is a fresh install

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with internet being fed thru my laptop bc it has no wifi set yet xP

cloud horizon
lime tangle
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failed to reload as its not applicable

cloud horizon
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sudo apt install sddm

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@lime tangle let's change it then install sddm

lime tangle
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aight

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noe it porpol

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do i just select sddm n just hit ok?

cloud horizon
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you install it

lime tangle
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ye

cloud horizon
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sudo apt install sddm -y

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after installing you say here

lime tangle
cloud horizon
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gdm

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change to gdm

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basically move from lightdm to the one below it

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idk if it is gdm or sddm there

lime tangle
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sddm

cloud horizon
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change to sddm

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key arrow down and enter

lime tangle
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did it n it ran a bunch of install stuff n then i did the reload command again

cloud horizon
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now do
sudo systemctl disable lightdm

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and after that

sudo systemctl enable sddm

lime tangle
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did both

cloud horizon
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it ran successfully?

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@lime tangle

lime tangle
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Looks like it did

cloud horizon
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@edgy quiver help here bro

cloud horizon
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if it appears enabled it is ok

lime tangle
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all it says is enabled, no errors

cloud horizon
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sudo systemctl status lightdm

does it appear disabled?

lime tangle
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it says enabled n after double checking where i should look on sddm it says disabled

cloud horizon
lime tangle
cloud horizon
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reboot then

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just need to type reboot

lime tangle
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yep

cloud horizon
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try login and say if it works

lime tangle
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i think sddm kicked in

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from reboot

cloud horizon
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if it doesnt work then the step is to come back to lightdm and look for another alternative

lime tangle
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yea, it does the same ;-;

cloud horizon
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enter the console

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log to the account and let's try something different

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do the
sudo systemctl disable sddm
then
sudo systemctl enable lightdm

and after that do
sudo apt install lightdm-gtk-greeter lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings -y

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if the screen appears you just select lightdm and click enter again

lime tangle
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the fact that i cant copy n paste that last one is gonna be fun

cloud horizon
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it installed something?

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those two are modules of lightdm that allow login

lime tangle
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yes it installed

cloud horizon
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then it was those packages that were missing

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try rebooting and entering in your account

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just type reboot in the command line

lime tangle
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ig i caught a bug xD

cloud horizon
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tell me if it works now

lime tangle
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just bc of a new build

cloud horizon
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if it works you can delete the sddm previously installed

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sudo apt purge sddm

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I was getting some problems with lightdm till I installed those two packages I sent you the name to install, so it worked for me at least

I hope it works for you lol

lime tangle
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the module doesnt wanna enable anymore for some reason

cloud horizon
lime tangle
cloud horizon
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they cant be enabled together, so you have to disable one before enabling the other

lime tangle
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They both have the line Active: inactive (dead)

cloud horizon
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sudo systemctl stop sddm

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disable the sddm, purge this package with
sudo apt purge sddm, then enable and start the lightdm

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they wont interfere if the sddm doesnt exists anymore

lime tangle
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did it, got log in, tried to log in n same issue

cloud horizon
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try install the package

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sudo apt install xdg-user-dirs-gtk xorg -y

lime tangle
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both at newest versions

cloud horizon
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it is the cinnamon version?

lime tangle
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yes

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want the neofetch again?

cloud horizon
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sudo apt install lightdm

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let's see if it at least exists

lime tangle
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does at newest version

cloud horizon
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sudo apt-get --reinstall install lightdm

lime tangle
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could it be by chance a driver issue or encrypted home directory?

cloud horizon
lime tangle
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yes

cloud horizon
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it doesnt affect anything because it decrypt with the login password

lime tangle
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ah, fairs bc i did mention it at the start just incase

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it reinstalled btw

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and issue somehow persists...

cloud horizon
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did you stop and purge the sddm?

lime tangle
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yes

cloud horizon
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strange, the two modules are installed and lightdm was reinstalled

lime tangle
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sddm service could not be found when i ran systemctl status sddm

cloud horizon
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whenyou set the password it acts like it is doing the login but goes back to the login page, right?

lime tangle
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yes

cloud horizon
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in the right above part of the login page

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there are some icons

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try clicking it, there will be probably a choice between cinnamon wayland and cinnamon X11

lime tangle
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so which do i click on, default, software rendering or wayland

cloud horizon
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change to x11

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cinnamon (X11)

lime tangle
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its on default which i assume is x11

cloud horizon
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it is the one that was selected when you got the issue?

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try the wayland to change

lime tangle
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same result

cloud horizon
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and the software rendering option

lime tangle
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same, could it be bc the OS is trying to use a gpu and the only one there is the radeon without any drivers?

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n by same i mean same result

cloud horizon
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I am searching about it, one moment

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@lime tangle

lime tangle
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👍

cloud horizon
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go to the console again and log in

lime tangle
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aight

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done

cloud horizon
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sudo apt install mdm

lime tangle
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done

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nothing popped up this time

cloud horizon
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sudo dpkg-reconfigure mdm

lime tangle
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done, it gave no outputs on console

cloud horizon
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now go back to the login, change to cinnamon default and try to login

lime tangle
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same stuff

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at this rate we may as well go on a silent stream n just let you see as well xD

cloud horizon
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I went to the linux mint official forum and someone solved the loop like that

lime tangle
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question, is there a chance that the OS is trying to use the gpu to load the desktop but failing bc there arent any drivers?

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mainly since the cpu that im using(threadripper 1950x) doesnt have one

cloud horizon
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and mint comes with lots of drivers built in

lime tangle
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:)

cloud horizon
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sincerely I dont know how to solve your problem, we tried changing the login service and it didnt work

cloud horizon
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it gave permission denied?

lime tangle
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nope

cloud horizon
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@quartz urchin help this guy
the only solution I see is him changing to fedora

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idk what he can do more other than what I already said to him

quartz urchin
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Oh, I am not very experienced in most things, hopefully some experienced peeps can, kernel_panic

lime tangle
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welcome lokait, we tried sddm, running thru all 3 desktop types n still the same issue as above

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at the very top

cloud horizon
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@lime tangletbh I dont know what you can do more

lime tangle
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well, there is the fact that we could try installing drivers for the gpu?

cloud horizon
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sudo systemctl stop lightdm

startx

lime tangle
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Oop, it just gave a timeout error

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nvm, running it in sudo made it start

cloud horizon
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did you install it without errors?

lime tangle
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was i supposed to install startx?

cloud horizon
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there is an automatic repair somewhere in the apps

lime tangle
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i just ran it as a command

cloud horizon
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try using it

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@lime tangle when you installed the linux mint, the partitions were mount automatically?

lime tangle
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after install? bc during install they were brand new

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so no partitions on any of them

cloud horizon
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when you were in the gui installation, you chose automatic mount the partitions or you manually did it

lime tangle
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manual

cloud horizon
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what you created there, what was your choice

lime tangle
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512mb boot

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34gb swap, rest mounted under /
that would be the 250GB drive

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2TB drive would be mounted under /home/

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/ and /home/ are formatted into btrfs

cloud horizon
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you have a new computer with UEFI or an old that work under bios

lime tangle
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new pc that i put together last night

cloud horizon
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hm

lime tangle
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yea, is that an issue or..?

cloud horizon
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nothing wrong with that

lime tangle
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i think i figured out why it wasnt loading in unless i ran sudo startx

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the 2tb nvme wasnt mounting itself

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so might be the issue

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nope, wasnt it

cloud horizon
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if the login was trying to access the home it didnt exist yet

lime tangle
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i will cry if it was

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bc it does have the automount option enabled

quasi wigeon
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click on it and then enter cinnamon using compatibility mode
upgrade your kernel and reboot 👍

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its just the lts kernel being terrible with select hardware like always

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this is the most probable cause. i have seen this issue quite a few times

lime tangle
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it might also be bc i have the /home directory in an alternative drive that refuses to automount for some reason

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bc if i sudo startx it starts fine, and whenever i open console from login it sets the starting directory as /
instead of /home/user

quasi wigeon
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I mean, if your home drive isnt mounted then the system obviously wont be able to start it and send you to the desktop

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What you can do is make the drive auto mount at start

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If you don't know how to do that then feel free to ping me

lime tangle
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@quasi wigeon

quasi wigeon
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Hi

quasi wigeon
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Cinnamon/Mate or XFCE?

lime tangle
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i have no clue bc this is the config on it and it doesnt wanna automount on login entry

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LM22 Cinnamon

quasi wigeon
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well, i dont trust the disks app so lets just install gparted

quasi wigeon
lime tangle
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I was wondering where my raid went, I'll mount it later :3

quasi wigeon
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your mount point is in /home

lime tangle
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yes

quasi wigeon
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basically

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MOUNT IT TO /mnt @lime tangle

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That is the default mount point of all your drives on linux

quasi wigeon
# lime tangle

by mounting it to /home you are basically mounting your drive to itself which is why your drive isnt getting mounted

lime tangle
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Do i just mount it using disks?

quasi wigeon
lime tangle
#

Done

quasi wigeon
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using disks is the gui /automatic way, if that doesnt work then we will manually add your drive to the list of mount points

quasi wigeon
lime tangle
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then try logging in?

quasi wigeon
lime tangle
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same result as the original issue

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sudo startx?

quasi wigeon
quasi wigeon
quasi wigeon
lime tangle
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sda and sdb are the ones merged for snapshot room, ill set it up after this, nvme0 is the boot drive and nvme1 is the user space

quasi wigeon
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got it

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see the text at the last, the weird mnt thing?

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/mnt/81....

lime tangle
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yea?

quasi wigeon
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that line?

quasi wigeon
lime tangle
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Like how it was already?

quasi wigeon
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do you have a text editor?

lime tangle
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xed i think

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which is default, n its there

quasi wigeon
lime tangle
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it there

quasi wigeon
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what we are making sure is that the mount point is actually saved in the file system tab

quasi wigeon
lime tangle
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login again?

quasi wigeon
lime tangle
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imma just assume itll be via sudo startx

quasi wigeon
lime tangle
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well, it would since same issue

quasi wigeon
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if it is then what this means is that the mint installer fudged up somehow

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your home directory and all relative directories arent how they should be

lime tangle
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well, home directory is in a seperate drive

quasi wigeon
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Sry, this is as far as i go
this is certainly fixable but youd ned the help of an experienced person to fix it.

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i know what needs to be done but im not knowledgeable enough to do it

lime tangle
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unless automount is broken on encrypted home directories

quasi wigeon
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you can refer to this since this is the fix

quasi wigeon
lime tangle
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yes...

quasi wigeon
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bro 💀 you are supposed to tell this stuff

quasi wigeon
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your system doesnt like drive encryption. since your home is in a separate directory bios isnt decrypting it @lime tangle

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and your system cant therefore mount it

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what you need to do when setting up drive encryption is to make sure home dir is on the main drive

lime tangle
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fairs

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but if now the drive itself isnt encrypted, just the contents :^

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i think i found the issue for why it doesnt mount the drive properly in fstab

lime tangle
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@quasi wigeon is it normal for the same drive to be mounted on / and /home?
Bc that is kinda what I'm seeing in fstab

quasi wigeon
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this is what mine looks like

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your image isnt very clear so i cant make out the words in it @lime tangle

lime tangle
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1 sec, lemme get a better one

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@quasi wigeon

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maybe this could possibly be why lm users who want home space to be placed on a separate drive with contents encrypted get this issue

edgy quiver
cloud horizon
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we tried changing lightdm to sddm but it didnt work either, came back to lightdm and installed some extra packages, lightdm-greeter and lightdm-greeter-settings
which didnt work either

lime tangle
# edgy quiver Is it possible to get a short summary what happened, and what has been tried so ...

My system won't allow me to log in bc I set the following partition config
NVMe0(250GB) - 512MB EFI, 34GB swap, rest btrfs mount /
NVMe1(2TB) - full btrfs /home mount with encryption
sda & sdb(2TB each) - Software RAID0, No partition set
System boots but refuses to log in outside of console with sudo startx(which we found out)
Most likely caused by the fstab setup above as well as encrypted home partition(found out with Fusion)

cloud horizon
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after that I didnt know what to do so fusion assumed

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we discovered that using startx with lightdm stopped would load the screen as usual after login in the console directly

edgy quiver
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That is

  • a ginormous swapspace
  • very unusual partition layout
  • likely caused by your use of BTRFS, where I presume a config error is hiding
  • not something to be solved by fiddling with display managers
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Perhaps reinstall and try with an ext4 rootfs first. Or try a simpler partition setup, perhaps only add the second one later. Going step by step will either fix this, or isolate the error.

edgy quiver
lime tangle
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Well, all I'm planning on doing with the 250GB drive is using it as a boot drive

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And I'm planning to configure the RAID drives after i get it working

cloud horizon
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i use 2gb of swap

lime tangle
lime tangle
edgy quiver
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The swapspace should not cause this issue, but it is one of the anomalies on your system, so I am pointing it out.

lime tangle
#

Fair enough then

lime tangle
# lime tangle

If now what i think would be causing it could potentially be either the fstab formatting caused by the layout
Or from the fact that I set the contents in the /home directory to be encrypted
@edgy quiver

edgy quiver
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Well, share your fstab here and we can look for config errors. Also make sure that the swapspace is actually set up as swap.

lime tangle
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I posted it as a screenshot which i replied to in my previous message and the swap space seems to be configured correctly from the looks of fstab and task manager

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But if ya want the file i can get it for ya

edgy quiver
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I see it. I have never set up a BTRFS root volume, so not sure if these mount options are valid.

lime tangle
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If now the weird part that i find is that the f97b drive is the 250 meanwhile the 81ca one is the encrypted /home partition

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Tho i wouldn't be confident in editing that file

edgy quiver
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That last line in the fstab is weird. Perhaps comment that out and see what happens.

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Other than that, my recommendation is doing a clean install. If you need that BTRFS root volume, perhaps read up on how that needs to be set up. I can offer no guidance on it, and my bet is that this is causing the issues.

lime tangle
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Same issue, only difference is that the 2TB NVMe drive isn't being given a mount location that being /home

edgy quiver
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Sorry, this is the end of my expertise. Good luck in BTRFS land.

lime tangle
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Damn

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If now I tried to edit the fstab file by replacing the UUID containing /home to match the one of the 2TB drive
Still no luck however it didn't change much to be honest

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N yes, i made a backup in the root directory

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@edgy quiver could you possibly explain the way fstab works, it might help me a little

edgy quiver
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The name stands for file system table. It is a list that the kernel parses to see where the file systems are and how you want them to be mounted for basic system functions.

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The mount options part is crucial, these make or break your system. I have no idea if that "subvol" stuff is all you need for BTRFS.

lime tangle
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Then what does the last digit mean at the very right on each drive listed?

edgy quiver
lime tangle
lime tangle
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@quasi wigeon question, would I be able to do the following formatting
Same as before except the / directory and /home drive are encrypted with LUKS instead and the home directory isn't encrypted in the installer?

quasi wigeon
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you would need to do this on a liveboot, then mount your external drive and create the home directory again and add it to fstab

lime tangle
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That's kinda what I was thinking of doing to be honest

lime tangle
#

@quasi wigeon so I've managed to get away with encrypting the drive that's going to be containing the /home directory in LUKS v2 btrfs
What now?

lime tangle
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@edgy quiver would you know how to correctly setup a LUKS drive so that it asks for the password during boot?

quasi wigeon
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unfortunately i have 0 experience in that area

lime tangle
#

Would ya know anyone who would be able to double check if i correctly set it up, bc i am kinda doubtful 😂

quasi wigeon
lime tangle
#

True, which i did with install without the /home specified n am encrypting the 2TB
Reason: Linux was being a b n going into recovery mode bc it wouldn't wanna prompt the password

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N then move the home partition into the drive

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@quasi wigeon so at the moment i have this
think ya would be able to help me with moving /home into the homedir crypt partition and make it prompt a password to unlock it during boot?

quasi wigeon
lime tangle
#

oof

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if i had to guess its similar to a regular partition but with an extra bit of detail

lime tangle
#

@quasi wigeon i got it, the disk gets decrypted and runs perfectly as /home directory now ^^

lime tangle
#

if ya want i could tell ya how

lime tangle
#
  1. Make the LUKS(v2) partition that will contain home partition using cryptsetup any password ya want
    2.Install LM using Something else and set the encrypted partition in the drive be used as /home n finish install b4 continuing
  2. Run dd if=/dev/urandom of=/root/keyfile bs=1024 count=4, making sure it ends up in the /root directory of the drive that is hosting your OS and run chmod 0400 /root/keyfile
  3. Run cryptsetup luksAddKey /dev/NAME /root/keyfile replace name with result from lsblk such as sdX, or nvmeXnY
  4. Configure /etc/fstab and /etc/crypttab accordingly

fstab: /dev/mapper/homedir /home btrfs defaults,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 2
should only be one line containing /home in fstab so you can always mount the drive somewhere and move from regular drive
crypttab: homedir UUID=e0940fb6-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx /root/keyfile luks
crypttab needs the following format
<crypt name> <Disk identfier> [keyfile] [encryption type]

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and if the keyfile is setup correctly then you have the following
Keyslot 0 = Password you set at the start
Keyslot 1 = Keyfile for auto decrypt

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@quasi wigeon

lime tangle
# quasi wigeon :O thanks

Tho one issue i found is that LM installer has an issue trying to install the OS onto an encrypted drive, so that would have to stay decrypted
Tho you might get away with partitioning the encrypted drive to host /root and /home while keeping the keyfile outside of both

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If ur gonna be using both user space and root space for sensitive data, but i don't see why to be fair

quasi wigeon
#

what ive told people upto this point is to reinstall, but looks like ill be able to help them actually get around this issue with your solution

lime tangle
#

Yea, if ya want i could make a cli script that only requires that the user maps out what the following info is
Mount point for the LUKS partition(s), mount point for the OS and which directories are to be mounted inside the LUKS partition(s) then run the commands routing most of them into the correct destinations

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Or at least try to 😅

quasi wigeon
#

just chill with your now working mint install
stuff like this is part of a really small niche so the chances of the script actually being used isnt all that much

lime tangle
#

Fair enough then

quasi wigeon
#

Perhaps what you can do if you really want to is flag the inability of the lm installer to properly setup encrypted /home partition and add your solution on the linux mint forums

lime tangle
#

True

lime tangle
#

@quasi wigeon think i could dm you the build i have so far of the script, it seems to be working well enough with a temporary directory that i built up to simulate the OS mount part

quasi wigeon
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I wont be able to personally test it out as im a bit busy but i can ask some others to maybe test it out if you are interested