(superseeded) Linuxcnc on Linux Mint 19.3 quick and easy installation

tommylight, you're so right about Window$. So many times - during boot, using the computer in any way, needing the computer to be something beyond an inefficient space heater, etc., it seems that they decided that, for every step, that whatever would be the least logical machine response was to be immediately preferred to the logical. They shouldn't have called it Windows, but rather, I'm Busy!

On my HP: HP Support Assistant Installing Support Solutions Framework

Holy crap! Makes you wonder when and where they installed the riddle machine.

Just tried on a clean install of 19.3 and I'm getting a kernel panic at boot after picking the kona kernel.
Not sure if it's related to enabling the source code repositories, but I doubt that's the boot problem. I did try installing with Mint 18, upgrading to 18.3, and then upgrading to 19. In the step from 18.3 to 19, the installer said that the X window system must be switched to lightdm. I'm not sure if that's part of the problem.

I think this might be my problem. UEFI. Yeah - you just UEFI'd up your computer! I'll try re-installing with this stuff disabled.

Never had such an issue, on over 30 installs with 19.1 and 19.2 and 19.3.
I know for sure the Cinnamon version crashes X but upon restarting it, it does work. It does this automatically, but it was an annoyance waiting for 15 seconds on every boot.
Check if you got the right versions of kona, the image and headers, and both are installed.
Otherwise i can not think of anything that would cause that...............wait, UEFI ???
Also check that uefi is disabled, and also that RAID is not active, in the BIOS.

My hardware includes 2 drives, one of which was formatted with a copy of CentOS 7 from an old server farm machine. Pretty sure is was pre-UEFI. That seems to cause all sorts of havoc, so I just removed all of those partitions & reinstalled Linux Mint. My HP 6300 SFF doesn't allow disabling of UEFI and, insanely, I already had this system functioning completely using your guide. Had to reinstall due to a fried motherboard & main drive. I used a new SSD and a WD caviar from that rack server. I'll let you know if this fixes it.

Why do I always seem to be the guinee pig?

pmconsulting wrote: I already had this system functioning completely using your guide. Had to reinstall due to a fried motherboard & main drive.

Why oh why ???
This is not windows, there is no need to reinstall a working Linux, never ever ! Well only in case the drive has failed.
I randomly and very often pull a drive from one of my laptops, put it in a USB to SATA adapter and plug it to a PC or another laptop and vice versa, it never fails to boot.

You are right, but., like an idiot, I broke off the sata plug on my drive when I was swapping the motherboard....

I did manage to find a cheap Chinese replacement for the drive part with that plug, but it has to get here from China, and I probably need to fumigate all that COVID-19 off of it when it gets here.

Also - because of the weirdness, I kept ending up at the grub prompt on reboot and needed to use the bios selector to get Linux to come up. That drove me to just vaporize everything off of all drives and let the default install do the right thing.

I do use this same box for Fusion 360 as a secondary machine when needed at my mill & lathe, so, for that, I plan to install Win 10 on the other drive and use the bios boot order to pick the system I need. I don't plan on using any boot loader because it really doesn't save any time over the bios interface & likely will cause confusion & consternation.

Is there any advantage to using the proceedure at gnispel.com/linuxcnc/ where you are actually compiling the kernel?

Not that i am aware of.

I can't seem to get this system back to life. I even followed the gnispel.com instructions and went through the lengthy build and make process. After finished, and the correct kernel is loaded, I no longer have a system that finds the nVidia graphics card. No nvidia drivers are loaded, the system is running slowly & there's seems to be no version that functions.

Some forums suggest disabling secure boot in the Bios, which I did before starting anything else, I've rebooted a bunch and the nVidia drivers that work fine without patching the kernel no longer work after following the gnispel instructions.