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I installed Mint Linux on my laptop (DELL Inspiron, made:2005) but it has no GUI and only boots in text mode. How can I repair it?

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does /var/log/Xorg.0.log show any relevant errors? – xenoterracide♦ May 18 '12 at 10:34
1) Which Dell Inspiron? I run 3 Dell Latitude C400s that were made in 2002. 2) How much RAM memory have you got? I have maxed the Latitudes to 1Gb each. 3) Which version of Linux Mint? – arochester May 28 '12 at 17:58

3 Answers

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I thinks it is because you use a very old computer that Mint has not included the necessary drivers for in the driver packages. If you use a newer computer you will not have such problems with a GUI-native distro.

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a 2005 computer isn't very old in terms of Linux, all distro's should be able to handle a computer with that. I sincerely hope Mint isn't nerfing itself in that way. Of course it's possible the system doesn't have enough RAM to handle the DE, but that's more likely to result in a crash. – xenoterracide♦ May 18 '12 at 10:32
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try to start the xserver:

     startx
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Can you expand on your answer? – uther May 18 '12 at 11:02
up vote 1 down vote

Your question is very limited in details.

How did you install it in first place? Which Version of Linux mint? Which desktop? Cinnamon or Mate if it's the latest mint 'maya. Any details regarding specification of your laptop hardware?

Please clarify those points.

If you dont know any of those, dont worry you could try this.

Thinking that what you installed is the latest available edition that is Linux Mint 'Maya'-Cinnamon edition, here may be the solution: Cinnamon requires a decent graphic card.

Recent Nvidia graphic card had issues. If that is the case then you can uninstall the nvidia driver using following command:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current-updates

If the problem is with other graphic driver please check out if there is latest driver available and install those.

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