Are you on XOrg or Wayland? Try to switch to Xorg. Logout and at login click on your username then a cog wheal appears at the bottom right corner. There select "Zorin Desktop on Xorg"
Doing that results in an empty textmode screen with a cursor topleft (and that is with the "good working" -88 kernel. Running that with the -90 kernel will likely not improve that.
I would add the Xorg log, but I can't seem to attach textfiles, and putting everything under a collapsable section makes the forum complain about having more than 5 links in it (?).
It seems my Xorg config doesn't know about the 2 screens I have attached. No idea how I can fix that (or how I broke that in the first place).
With some AI assistance, I managed to get that working again. I can confirm that the errors with regard to applications and gnome itself are not showing themselves (yet).
However, I am seeing this in my dmesg:
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 systemd-udevd[642]: Worker [667] terminated by signal 11 (SEGV)
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: systemd-udevd[667]: segfault at 73cc722012d3 ip 000073cc689f82f0 sp 00007ffd657541b0 error 4 in libkmod.so.2.3.7[73cc689f2000+11000] likely on CPU 0 (core 0, socket 0)
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: Code: 04 25 28 00 00 00 0f 85 1e 01 00 00 48 81 c4 38 02 00 00 4c 89 e0 5b 5d 41 5c 41 5d 41 5e 41 5f c3 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 <0f> be 13 0f be 43 01 4c 8d 6b 02 89 c6 29 d0 89 d1 8d 50 01 4c 63
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 systemd-udevd[642]: LNXSYSTM:00: Worker [667] failed
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 systemd-udevd[642]: Worker [675] terminated by signal 11 (SEGV)
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 systemd-udevd[642]: LNXPWRBN:00: Worker [675] failed
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: systemd-udevd[645]: segfault at 73cc722012d3 ip 000073cc689f82f0 sp 00007ffd657541d0 error 4 in libkmod.so.2.3.7[73cc689f2000+11000] likely on CPU 5 (core 5, socket 0)
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: Code: 04 25 28 00 00 00 0f 85 1e 01 00 00 48 81 c4 38 02 00 00 4c 89 e0 5b 5d 41 5c 41 5d 41 5e 41 5f c3 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 <0f> be 13 0f be 43 01 4c 8d 6b 02 89 c6 29 d0 89 d1 8d 50 01 4c 63
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: systemd-udevd[675]: segfault at 73cc722012d3 ip 000073cc689f82f0 sp 00007ffd657541b0 error 4 in libkmod.so.2.3.7[73cc689f2000+11000] likely on CPU 13 (core 5, socket 0)
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: Code: 04 25 28 00 00 00 0f 85 1e 01 00 00 48 81 c4 38 02 00 00 4c 89 e0 5b 5d 41 5c 41 5d 41 5e 41 5f c3 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 <0f> be 13 0f be 43 01 4c 8d 6b 02 89 c6 29 d0 89 d1 8d 50 01 4c 63
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: systemd-udevd[647]: segfault at 73cc722012d3 ip 000073cc689f82f0 sp 00007ffd657541d0 error 4 in libkmod.so.2.3.7[73cc689f2000+11000] likely on CPU 10 (core 2, socket 0)
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: Code: 04 25 28 00 00 00 0f 85 1e 01 00 00 48 81 c4 38 02 00 00 4c 89 e0 5b 5d 41 5c 41 5d 41 5e 41 5f c3 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 <0f> be 13 0f be 43 01 4c 8d 6b 02 89 c6 29 d0 89 d1 8d 50 01 4c 63
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: systemd-udevd[651]: segfault at 73cc722012d3 ip 000073cc689f82f0 sp 00007ffd657541d0 error 4 in libkmod.so.2.3.7[73cc689f2000+11000] likely on CPU 2 (core 2, socket 0)
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: Code: 04 25 28 00 00 00 0f 85 1e 01 00 00 48 81 c4 38 02 00 00 4c 89 e0 5b 5d 41 5c 41 5d 41 5e 41 5f c3 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 <0f> be 13 0f be 43 01 4c 8d 6b 02 89 c6 29 d0 89 d1 8d 50 01 4c 63
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: systemd-udevd[650]: segfault at 73cc722012d3 ip 000073cc689f82f0 sp 00007ffd657541d0 error 4 in libkmod.so.2.3.7[73cc689f2000+11000] likely on CPU 3 (core 3, socket 0)
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: Code: 04 25 28 00 00 00 0f 85 1e 01 00 00 48 81 c4 38 02 00 00 4c 89 e0 5b 5d 41 5c 41 5d 41 5e 41 5f c3 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 <0f> be 13 0f be 43 01 4c 8d 6b 02 89 c6 29 d0 89 d1 8d 50 01 4c 63
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: systemd-udevd[681]: segfault at 73cc722012d3 ip 000073cc689f82f0 sp 00007ffd657541d0 error 4 in libkmod.so.2.3.7[73cc689f2000+11000] likely on CPU 4 (core 4, socket 0)
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: systemd-udevd[687]: segfault at 73cc722012d3 ip 000073cc689f82f0 sp 00007ffd657541d0 error 4
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: Code: 04 25 28 00 00 00 0f 85 1e 01 00 00 48 81 c4 38 02 00 00 4c 89 e0 5b 5d 41 5c 41 5d 41 5e 41 5f c3 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 <0f> be 13 0f be 43 01 4c 8d 6b 02 89 c6 29 d0 89 d1 8d 50 01 4c 63
Dec 29 22:17:45 PC2021 kernel: in libkmod.so.2.3.7[73cc689f2000+11000] likely on CPU 0 (core 0, socket 0)
That doesn't seem too healthy either. No segfaults are logged at all when using 6.8.0-88.
Segmentation faults are usually indications of programs that have been badly written and trying to access memory that they shouldn't, and rarely, potential hardware failure. I would run Disks and use the S.M.A.R.T. test on your hard drive.
I know. The thing is that these segfaults do not happen at all when using kernel 6.8.0-88, but only started happening when the upgrade to 6.8.0-90 was done. And they do not happen when rebooting to 6.8.0-88 again.
I think this highlights another issue. It is amazing how kernels have a limited life from a security angle when the Linux kernel seems more concerned with keeping up with new hardware. It feels to me like the Linux kernel is trying to keep up with that other OS to placate gamers at the expense of a useable system.
Update: I left my system running on 6.8.0-90 since the last post. When returning to it, I found myself unable to login, the mouse was responding to movement and clicks (though that was harder to verify). Since I locked the system when leaving it yesterday, I had to login, however the login prompt behaved like the [Enter]-key was stuck: it continuously said authentication failed (erratically blinking that message). Keypressed did not result in blobs appearing in the password box. CIFS shares ceased working at some point, SSH didn't work either. The system was still pingable.
I was forced to do a hard-reset, which ended me up in the recovery console upon the next boot, since there were filesystem errors in the root filesystem (ext4) that needed manual oversight. Not that I could do much at that point but tell fsck to fix everything anyway.
It seems like I've lost the entire system journal since my last post and God knows what else.
What strikes me as odd is that I would have expected more reports about this to pop up on the internet, but we'll see.
If someone knows anything I could do to test to narrow down what exactly is going wrong, please do speak up
All I can say is that whilst other users may not have had segfaults, there has been instances where a newer kernel has meant the system does not work properly - this is why it is good to have the GRUB menu shown (I had to use Boot Repair with Zorin 18 to get the GRUB menu to show!). Once you have GRUB menu present at boot you can select 'Advanced options' and then choose an earlier kernel. The next step is to prevent the system from installing the same problematical kernel in future updates.
