MX Linux Forum

Update: I am now in a state where I cannot seem to make any further progress: on first boot attempt this morning, following removal of the Zotac graphics card, my monitor reports 'no signal' when connected to the on-board HDMI port. So I have no idea what is going on, except that there is some activity from the HDD on which /home is located - so presumably enough of Linux has started to require access to my /home directory. But I am unable to install or modify any other kernel or kernel parameter.

I don't see any boot options presented by BIOS , such as F2 (system set-up) or F12 (choose boot device), before the 'no signal' message is displayed. The monitor works fine when connected, using the same HDMI cable, to my laptop.

Any suggestions on where I go from here?

What about any other kind of connections? (Even VGA)

This system is confusing - I'm now well beyond my level of understanding: I switched to another monitor with DVI and VGA ports and found there was 'no signal' from the on-board graphics UNTIL I installed the Zotac card into the PC and tried using the ports on the card. (i.e the complete reverse of what I expected). Then I get as far as seeing the GIGABYTE BIOS splash screen - and was able, on the next restart, to enter BIOS set-up, where I learned that the primary graphics output was to the PCIe card, not the on-board graphics (which explains the 'no signal' status when trying to use the on-board graphics).

With the GIGABYTE BIOS splash screen showing I pressed Ctrl+Alt+F6 and was presented with a command line log-in prompt. At this point I am out of understanding: how can I start the MX Linux desktop from this command line prompt? And what would I do with it anyway? This is no way to proceed to boot an MX Linux system, is it ?

My attempts to "sudo systemctl restart lightdm" are rejected with error messages:
System has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1)
Can't operate
Failed to connect to bus: Hist is down

I don't understand how to recover from this.

LateJunction wrote: Tue Jan 23, 2024 9:19 am This system is confusing - I'm now well beyond my level of understanding: I switched to another monitor with DVI and VGA ports and found there was 'no signal' from the on-board graphics UNTIL I installed the Zotac card into the PC and tried using the ports on the card. (i.e the complete reverse of what I expected). Then I get as far as seeing the GIGABYTE BIOS splash screen - and was able, on the next restart, to enter BIOS set-up, where I learned that the primary graphics output was to the PCIe card, not the on-board graphics (which explains the 'no signal' status when trying to use the on-board graphics).

With the GIGABYTE BIOS splash screen showing I pressed Ctrl+Alt+F6 and was presented with a command line log-in prompt. At this point I am out of understanding: how can I start the MX Linux desktop from this command line prompt? And what would I do with it anyway? This is no way to proceed to boot an MX Linux system, is it ?

You likely have to disable the onboard graphics card in the bios before the discrete Zotac card will work.

j2mcgreg wrote: Tue Jan 23, 2024 9:30 am [
You likely have to disable the onboard graphics card in the bios before the discrete Zotac card will work.

Yeah, I understood that.

if you can get back to the command line prompt, does the command work to bring up the graphical desktop?

No startx (and sudo startx) is rejected with a message saying the system has not been booted with systemd - even if I choose that option at the grub menu.

It's about 4 weeks that I have been working this issue. I'm now stumbling around in the dark, wasting generous people's time, not knowing what I am doing or what I should be doing. If there is no 'if all else fails , then contact X' option than I will have to dispose of this PC - which would be a pity as I know it has a reasonable specification and works fine with Win 10 (but I will NOT tolerate that OS ever again).

On that login prompt you just need to login manually, type user name, press Enter then type password "blindly" (there won't be "echo" *** as you type) and press Enter. Then if there's internet connection you can even try to install an Nvidia driver:
(It doesn't have to be F6 .. you can press Ctrl+Alt+F1 any time you like and do these...)

In response to this command I get: "Invalid Option" with no other information.