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I have an Acer Aspire One D270 netbook, with an Atom N2600 quad-core processor and integrated PowerVR graphics. It happily runs Linux Mint 'Sylvia' (based on Ubuntu 16.04).

The disk has a 70GB partition where I was hoping to install Ubuntu 18.04. Here is what I did:

I downloaded the ubuntu-18.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso and wrote it to a 2GB USB stick.

I booted from the stick and chose the "Try Ubuntu without installing" option. The GUI appeared and seemed perfectly usable and stable.

I clicked the "Install Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS" icon and selected the following options in the installer:

  • Normal installation
  • Download updates
  • Install third party software
  • I chose the free partition as root and opted to format it first.

Everything seemed to install correctly with no errors. I rebooted.

The purple ubuntu splash screen appeared, with the flashing red and white dots. After a few seconds, the dots stopped flashing. The mouse pointer appeared at the bottom right of the screen, but wouldn't move.

After a couple of minutes, the display switched to text mode and displayed the boot messages. The last message said:

Started GNOME Display Manager. Dispatcher Service....

The mouse pointer disappears for a couple of seconds every 10-20 seconds, but is still unresponsive.

I have tried switching to another terminal using Ctrl+Alt+F2, but nothing happens.

If I reboot and choose Advanced options for Ubuntu > Recovery Mode, I get to the rescue menu. If I choose resume normal boot, it just hangs with a black screen.

Something seems to be hanging but I have no idea what, so would welcome any suggestions.

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  • @karel please note my answer. It seems to be a common problem with 18.04 on older computers with older GPU's.
    – heynnema
    Oct 18, 2018 at 13:33
  • @heynnema I retracted my CV.
    – karel
    Oct 18, 2018 at 13:38

1 Answer 1

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You may have a problem with an older computer, with an older GPU. Try this...

  • boot to recovery mode
  • choose root access

type:

sudo mount -o remount,rw /      # to remount the disk r/w

sudo pico /etc/gdm3/custom.conf # edit this file

change:

#WaylandEnable=false

to:

WaylandEnable=false

Then reboot.

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  • Thank you so much, that was exactly the problem. I don't see how I could ever have diagnosed this as the fault by myself. I had a minor issue: trying to remount the partition as read/write failed with mount: /: /dev/sda7 already mounted on /. Not a major problem - I just rebooted into Mint (or could have used the live USB), mounted /dev/sda7 and edited the /etc/gdm3/custom.conf file from there.
    – Simonski
    Oct 18, 2018 at 8:04
  • @Simonski Glad it's working for you. It originally took me days to find that one. I had a small error in the mount command, now fixed, that caused your remount error. Sorry about that. These late nights takes its toll... giggle.
    – heynnema
    Oct 19, 2018 at 5:56

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