Installation problem

[Felix Miata]

Mike Jonas composed on 2017-07-05 06:11 (UTC+1000):

> Felix Miata wrote:

>> Mike Jonas composed on 2017-07-04 09:00 (UTC+1000):

>>> Acer Aspire S 13 ... Mint 18.1 ...
...
>> "Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-53-generic
>> root=UUID=5cba3833-f404-4f25-b775-2f750ad191b6 ro recovery nomodeset"

>> is an emergency/recovery cmdline. Whatever you did to cause use of nomodeset
>> will prevent the Intel Xorg and the Modeset Xorg video drivers to be unusable,
>> either of which is prerequisite to a usable modern X Server, hence the
>> X server is now disabled..." message you get.

> Thanks for replying. "m/c" is just "machine" (that's what we called a 
> computer 20+ years ago). The problem has now gone away, but I didn't do 
> anything to make it go away - which makes me nervous that it could 
> return. I haven't tried your suggestions re 'xorg.conf' and 
> 'Ctrl-Alt-F2' but I'll try them if restart fails again. - Mike.

I have a suspicion what happened, that, because I never use Mint's bootloader, I
have no convenient way to confirm. What I think happened is the bootloader was
originally configured to remember the last selection, and that after the first
successful boot you inadvertently selected a recovery mode bootloader selection,
which was remembered until you made a different selection some time later.
Recovery mode disables modesetting, which in turn kills Xorg. If this was the
case, you need not be nervous about it happening again. You could test by
intentionally selecting a recovery mode bootloader menu selection.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/