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I asked how to safely go about replacing my linux mint partition a friend set up, and followed the answer given to me here: How do I replace the Linux Mint partition with Ubuntu without harming my Windows 10 partition?

Since trying Ubuntu without installing via bootable USB was working swimmingly I thought there would be no harm in replacing the mint partition using the helpful answer mentioned previously. Sadly it seems the Ubuntu partition is pretty much unusable.

The moment I log in to Ubuntu it simply stops after about a minute. No crashes, errors, or black screens. It just refuses to take input of any kind. Luckily the Windows 10 partition is fine and I can easily boot into either via grub2.

I am not sure what could have happened other than the partition screen displayed during install that is shown in the helpful answer was different than mine. Mine had more than 4 extra partitions compared to his, one labeled efi. In retrospect I should have questioned that more.

My laptop

  • Asus VivoBook Pro 17,

  • 1TB hard drive and 256GB SSD,

  • i7-8550U mobile processor,

  • 16GB RAM

  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card

I am not sure what other info would be useful but I'll provide anything I can.

EDIT:

I am a bit more confused than before. After numerous tries just restarting my laptop to try suggestions without it freezing before I could even get through the "Welcome to Ubuntu" setup I chose not to send error info instead of the default on my last restart.

For some reason that stopped the freezing until I allowed some downloaded updates to install and chose to restart, which immediately froze Ubuntu up to where I needed force shutdown my laptop. It seems that whenever I try to normally shutdown or restart Ubuntu it freezes now.

The following is output from ls -al /var/crash:

ls -al /var/crash

total 8

drwxrwsrwt 2 root whoopsie 4096 Jul 24 22:09 .

drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 Jul 24 22:14 ..

HopefulNewb
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  • If you're using the Nvidia proprietary drivers I suggest you disable them. – Kristopher Ives Oct 02 '18 at 00:50
  • Have you installed any GNOME extensions? If so, it's probably one of those. Go to https://extensions.gnome.org/local/ and disable them all, and see if that fixes it. Report back to @heynnema. – heynnema Oct 02 '18 at 02:36
  • @heynnema I was frustrated since I could not manage to actually attempt either of your suggestions. Each time I could not even make it through the "Welcome to Ubuntu" setup pages before it would freeze. Then on my last restart I chose not to send error info on a whim, and for some reason it seems to be working fine at the moment. I was curious if you had any idea why this might be the case? – HopefulNewb Oct 03 '18 at 16:20
  • I only offered one suggestion :-) It sounds like this is a new/fresh install. It sounds like something is crashing at boot/login time. Edit your question to include the output of ls -al /var/crash. – heynnema Oct 03 '18 at 16:29
  • Oh, I was referring to yours and Kristopher Ives suggestions. :) – HopefulNewb Oct 03 '18 at 16:52
  • @heynnema added the command output to the question. – HopefulNewb Oct 03 '18 at 19:00
  • @HopefulNewb see my partial answer, and report back. – heynnema Oct 03 '18 at 19:23

1 Answers1

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Incomplete answer...

1. Lets first check your file system for errors.

To check the file system on your Ubuntu partition...

  • boot to the GRUB menu
  • choose Advanced Options
  • choose Recovery mode
  • choose Root access
  • at the # prompt, type sudo fsck -f /
  • repeat the fsck command if there were errors
  • type reboot

If for some reason you can't do the above...

  • boot to a Ubuntu Live DVD/USB
  • start gparted and determine which /dev/sdaX is your Ubuntu EXT4 partition
  • quit gparted
  • open a terminal window
  • type sudo fsck -f /dev/sdaX # replacing X with the number you found earlier
  • repeat the fsck command if there were errors
  • type reboot

2. Boot to the Ubuntu Live USB or DVD, and see if it's stable.

Report back to @heynnema in the comments.

Community
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heynnema
  • 70,711
  • I did as you said. I ran the fsck command and it found no errors before going back to command input, then since it took me a second to realize it finished it said something about timeout not being able to access certain partitions like efi. I ran it again to be safe and it gave nothing, so I typed the reboot command. And it hung so I had to force shutdown the laptop again. – HopefulNewb Oct 04 '18 at 15:07
  • @HopefulNewb I need the exact error message that you saw during the fsck. Did you try step #2? I assume that it worked fine. Once booted to the USB flash drive, start the Disks application, go to the hamburger icon and select SMART Data & Tests. Observe the drive summary, and run the tests. Report back. – heynnema Oct 04 '18 at 18:53