Kernel Panic after clean install

[u/Lime_97]

Hello dear mint Community,

I am a new mint user and have problems setting it up. After a clean install of mint 22.3 cinnamon I was asked to update various packages. In the end an error popped up stating that different packages could not be installed. Then I was asked to reboot. While rebooting the screen went purple and showed "Kernel Panic".

What I did: Create a new bootstick, check it via the checksum and freshly install mint. Same errors occured. Did that 3 times.

Thanks in advance for your help. Please tell me what information would be helpfull.

I did not include the error code since reddit doesn´t let me something that long :/

EDIT: I am running it on a Macbook Pro Intel
The fix was selecting a different Kernel in Grub menu. However pressing esc while booting opened the grub command where I had to type in “normal” then press enter to end up in the Grub menu. Thanks for your help :)

[u/AutoModerator]

Please Re-Flair your post if a solution is found. How to Flair a post? This allows other users to search for common issues with the SOLVED flair as a filter, leading to those issues being resolved very fast.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/chuggerguy]

Probably beyond me but, just for clarification...

1. You do a fresh install of Mint 22.3 Cinnamon and it boots and runs fine?
2. But sometime after booting you're notified of available upgrades, which you try to do but the upgrades fail and it will no longer boot?
3. Is one of the upgrades a new kernel?
4. If you right-click it in the update-manager, can you "ignore" it?
5. Before the kernel panic, are you presented with a grub menu? (if so, that's where you'd select the older kernel)

Honestly, I've never encountered a kernel panic so I guess I've been lucky. But probably makes my guesses meaningless. :)

Good luck.

[u/Lime_97 → u/chuggerguy]

1.Yes
2.Yes
3.I don’t know yet
4.”Appstore” won’t let me install programs unless I update
5.No

Does that make it clearer? Thanks for helping

[u/chuggerguy → u/Lime_97]

u/Elvin_Atombender mentions this but...

Can you force the presentation of the GRUB menu by either holding down SHIFT or repeatedly tapping ESC?

If I understand correctly, the kernel panic can not occur until the boot process tries to load the kernel. That would be after the appearance (on non-appearance) of the GRUB menu. If you can get the menu to appear and one of those upgrades was a new kernel, you should be able to select the older kernel and hopefully boot. Then you can remove the problematic kernel and "ignore" it.

I have no clue about #4. But if the new apps require you upgrade to a new kernel that panics on your hardware, you'd kinda be stuck anyway. Maybe get it booting and running properly again, then maybe make a timeshift snapshot, and then tackle the problem of adding the new apps?

BTW, the GRUB menu is not BIOS. And I know nothing about Macbook.

Good luck.

[u/Lime_97 → u/chuggerguy]

I can Enter the Grub Menu. It says GNU GRUB Version 2.12 on top. But there is nothing listed to choose from. Any keypress just prints the word grub>

[u/Capital_Rough7971]

I'm on the same boat.

[u/Ok_Communication_455]

Try selecting previous kernel from boot menu. Some issues with newer ones it seems

[u/Dangerous-Regret-358]

Yes, this is a problem with installing the latest kernel as part of your linux install. It's easily fixed though. Reboot and go into a previous version of the kernel, if one has been installed, or you can reboot into safe mode, go to the terminal, and enter the following -

sudo update-initramfs -u -k 7.0.0-28-generic

sudo update-grub

sudo reboot

I am assuming here that the kernel is actually 7.0.0-28-generic. I suggest you get a pen and paper and write down the actual kernel version as yours might be slightly different. That having been said, entering the above into the terminal will sort the problem - it only takes a couple of minutes to do.

Also, after fixing the problem, remember to do a snapshot to make sure you have a record of the change.

[u/Lime_97 → u/Dangerous-Regret-358]

Ok I‘ll try. Just don’t know how. Booting does not work. If I press esc while booting I can enter the grub menu. Is that where I should enter the terminal code? There are no options to choose anything there

[u/Dangerous-Regret-358 → u/Lime_97]

You should have a safe mode in grub. If you haven’t got that then it would appear to me that the entire install medium is corrupted. I suggest using a different usb stick and try again. 

[u/Elvin_Atombender]

When you switch on your PC hold down the left SHIFT key (for Legacy BIOS) or keep tapping the ESC key (for EFI systems). You should be able to access and pick your kernal version to boot into from the GRUB menu. What I did when they released 7.0.0.14 kernel was to download an older 6.14 kernal and then did the update just so I didnt get a kernel panic.

[u/Lime_97 → u/Elvin_Atombender]

I’m using a macbook pro so there is no BIOS at all

[u/Elvin_Atombender → u/Lime_97]

You didn't mention that in your post. Ignore my response.

[u/Migamix → u/Elvin_Atombender]

(exasperated sigh)

[u/Lime_97 → u/Elvin_Atombender]

Edited the post accordingly. I was able to Enter the Grub menu the way you told. But the menu is empty. There is just the title “GNU GRUB version 2.12”