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Black Screen After Graphics Package Removal – Recovery Steps Not Working

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I recently encountered issues with some packages on my Linux Mint 22 Cinnamon system, particularly libgl. To fix them, I uninstalled all packages and then selectively reinstalled some. However, this process accidentally removed many graphics-related packages (I use AMD GPU). After realizing this, I rebooted. **What Happened After Rebooting:** - GRUB Menu Appeared: I selected my usual Linux Mint 22 Cinnamon option. - It booted into a TTY terminal instead of the graphical interface. - Reinstalling Graphics Packages in TTY: I logged in, installed the missing packages, and resolved held packages by downgrading certain dependencies. - Instead of rebooting, I ran sudo systemctl restart lightdm. This resulted in a black screen with only an underscore. Keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+Alt+F1/F3/F6 did nothing, so I forcefully powered off the system. After Powering On Again, the system now shows a completely black screen immediately after boot. One click on the power button turns the PC off. I think this confirms that the problem with the gpu. **Recovery Mode Attempt:** - I rebooted, entered recovery mode, and selected the latest kernel. - Enabled Networking: It mentioned that this would remount the root filesystem as read/write and mount all filesystems from /etc/fstab. - Root Shell Access: I dropped into the root shell instead of pressing Ctrl+D for maintenance mode. - Tried Reinstalling AMD GPU Packages (Failed): In recovery mode, I tried reinstalling the missing AMD GPU packages, but the system keeps saying they aren’t installed, and I can’t proceed further. **System Configuration:** Primary SSD (Partitioned as follows): - Root (/) - Home (/home) - A second partition (auto-mounted via /etc/fstab) Secondary HDD (3 partitions, also auto-mounted via /etc/fstab, but not related to Linux). **Final Question:** As a last resort, I am considering reinstalling Linux Mint on the root (/) partition while keeping the same username to match my existing /home partition. - Will this preserve my data in /home and the second SSD partition? - Are there any other solutions before attempting a reinstallation? Would appreciate any guidance on how to recover my system without losing data.
Asked by Kareem Noureddine (11 rep)
Feb 13, 2025, 11:59 AM
Last activity: Feb 13, 2025, 06:52 PM