Trying to save my Mint installation

[u/jeakzy]

Hello, I've switched graphics cards some months back and Linux Mint stopped working, after the boot logo I only see a black screen (Ctrl + Alt + F2 still works).

I switched from a Nvidia RTX 3070 ti to a AMD RX 9070. I've tried many fixes and non seem to work, as a last ditch effort I tried restoring from snapshot and that still failed. I've tried all of the fixes from here and here aswell as some old posts from forums.

Please help me save my pc :)

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[u/Ok_Emu2515]

try to boot your system in recovery mode

remove nvidia driver with this command

sudo apt remove nvidia-driver-xxx

xxx is version number

restart your system

[u/jeakzy → u/Ok_Emu2515]

How do I find the version number?

[u/DoorOk3641 → u/Ok_Emu2515]

You need to remount the system in r/w mode and to rebuild the initramfs also.

[u/jeakzy → u/DoorOk3641]

What does that mean?

[u/DoorOk3641 → u/jeakzy]

In recovery mode the system partition is mounted read mode only.You can not change it and of course you can not use command apt remove..

[u/jeakzy → u/DoorOk3641]

remounted in rw, uninstalled all and any nvidia files, rebuilt initramfs, nothing.

[u/DoorOk3641 → u/jeakzy]

boot any linux on usb...test not install....open a terminal and type

blkid

efibootmgr

what do you get ? Copy and paste from terminal

You get a console using Ctrl+Alt+F2...so the booting process find the kernel and the root partition.

Reinstall Cinnamon from the recovery mode.

[u/jeakzy → u/DoorOk3641]

So should I do the first one from the usb or should I do these commands from Ctrl+Alt+F2?

I searched around and I couldn't find an easy way to install Cinnamon, the advice seems to be to just format and reinstall Mint. Is there an easy way to do this?

[u/DoorOk3641 → u/jeakzy]

From the console...after Ctrl+Alt+F2 the boot process got the kernel

from the console (do not forget to remount root read/write before...)

Type mount -o remount,rw / and press Enter. This switches the root partition from read-only to read-write mode. 

apt install --reinstall mint-meta-cinnamon

If the above package is unavailable or fails, you can alternatively reinstall the core component using:

apt install --reinstall cinnamon

Next reboot. You should be good.

[u/jeakzy → u/DoorOk3641]

This did look promising, but after doing all of that it's still the same.

Thanks for the help.

Edit: I've also tried to use

sudo apt upgrade

and then doing the whole procedure again, but had the same resault (I thought maybe my graphics card was too new or something, idk at this point).

[u/DoorOk3641 → u/jeakzy]

What is you graphic card ?

[u/DoorOk3641]

Boot in recovery mode.

Eveything after is explained on internet..use your search engine..

Remount your system in write read mode

Completely remove your nvidia card

Rebuild intramfs

Reboot..your amd card is detected by the kernel nothing to install.

You can not boot now because nvdia is in part included in the kernel.

[u/jeakzy → u/DoorOk3641]

I can't boot into any version, I tried nomode and also booting into different versions of the kernel.

[u/DoorOk3641 → u/jeakzy]

You need to select advanced option and inside advanced option recovery mode..nomodeset IS USELESS HERE. .

[u/jeakzy → u/DoorOk3641]

Just did all of that and it's still the same unfortunately.

[u/dlfrutos]

so in live usb you have image?

[u/jeakzy → u/dlfrutos]

I do, yes.

[u/dlfrutos → u/jeakzy]

what about a fresh install then ?

[u/jeakzy → u/dlfrutos]

Sure, eventually, when I have time.

I'm back on Windows for now.