Yesterday, software update popped up with new packages to install. I did so, but because it was late, when it asked to reboot, I shut down and went to bed instead. This morning, performance is completely shot. As in, if there's a full screen refresh, I can actually see it draw the screen from top to bottom. Additionally, I have a 29" monitor and a 31", both of which have always been correctly identified in the past, but which are now showing as a 46" unknown monitor. The Software and Updates tool shows me still using the same proprietary driver I've been using (NVIDIA's proprietary 545).
What did this update break, and how do I fix it? Preemptively, there is no Timeshift snapshot, and I have not tried anything on my own yet. I'm still much more familiar with Windows than Linux, and don't wish to make things worse before asking where to start.
This is a common issue with the latest update (or at least, most likely).
The latest update has upgraded the kernel to version 6.8 (you can check this by running uname -r in the terminal and seeing what kernel is being used. You have two options to solve this issue:
On boot, in the grub menu, select the older 6.5 kernel to boot into
Upgrade to version 550 drivers for nvidia (apparently 545 has an issue with the new 6.8 kernel)
Let me know if either of these is the problem. I would try just booting into kernel 6.5 first and go from there.
I am on kernel 6.8, as you mentioned, which would be an update I'm very happy about about if not for this. I don't have a GRUB menu at boot, as I run only Zorin; there's no choice to make. If there's a way to get that menu, or change the kernel used from a running system, I'd love to know. Honestly, I'd prefer to update to the 550 driver as I'm using a 4090, so most updates to the drivers are relevant to my hardware, but it's not in the additional drivers tab of the Software and Updates tool, just a bunch of 535 and 545 options. My last attempt at installing the Nvidia drivers from Nvidia themselves failed. I don't recall the specifics, but I vaguely recall suspecting it conflicted with something Zorin had set up.
Any help updating the driver to 550 or booting in kernel 6.5 (preferably the former) would be greatly appreciated. I wanted both of these updates (driver and kernel) anyway.
Edit: I attempted to switch to the 535 proprietary driver (since it's marked as tested) from the Software and Updates tool while waiting for a response, and got an empty dialogue box with an exclamation mark icon, and the driver stayed on 545.
Ok, i'm not well versed in the Nvidia driver update process, but plenty of people are here (especially due to this lol), so hopefully someone can give you some more clear instructions on that bit. There is this post about the installation and purge of old drivers that you can look at here:
But possibly someone might have brand new instructions for you. I'm not sure if the reinstall of the desktop is necessary at all, but like I said, I'm not well versed in the Nvidia driver install and removal process.
... well, sadly attempting to install the Nvidia driver from Nvidia itself has resulted in what appears to be catastrophic system failure.
Nvidia's installer recommends not installing with an X server running. So, finding instructions, I stopped the X server and switched virtual consoles to run the installer. It failed, apparently not liking how cc is configured in Zorin, so I attempted to start the X server again. This seemed to work, but my desktop was cluttered with icons I normally don't have on it. Okay, fine, reboot.
And here my troubles began. At this point, booting fails, ending on a screen with a flashing cursor in the upper left, apparently after snapd has successfully started and it moves to whatever is next. Whether 6.5 or 6.8 (I failed to boot enough that the GRUB menu showed for troubleshooting), the result now is the same failure.
This is exactly the kind of problem that keeps desktop users on Windows, and which I thought Linux had moved past. I don't blame ZorinGroup for the kernel/driver conflict that set me on this path. I'm a professional software tester with 19 years of experience. I know small groups can't catch everything. But I think this should be a call for them to make drivers available through their own tools much more quickly. If I could have changed to 550 through the Software and Updates tool, perhaps I could have avoided this. Now I'm almost certainly stuck starting from scratch. Bad times.
@Locklear93 , commiserations, I had the same thing happen to me earlier this year with Mint Cinnamon kernel update and I had no way back as it wasn't a dual boot, so a complete fresh install was called for. This latest kernel upgrade didn't cause any problems, but I don't use Nvida.
However, this new kernel upgrade did cause me problems with Zorin! As a complete newbie, I fudged it myself, losing the chance to use the Timeshift snapshot I had made just prior to upgrading! I rebooted too many times and Windows (this machine is dual boot) took over, scanned the drives and that was that - so a complete fresh install of Zorin Core was necessary.
Lessons learned:
Timeshift is your friend!
Déjà Dup is also your friend and will back up everything to Google Drive
Hold off on ANY updates until you have scanned the forum posts to see what problems are occurring
Yeah, hindsight is always 20/20 but there are things we can do to help ourselves.
I had an automatic virus scan randomly start up on my Windows 10 while I was going back to a restore point - Blue Screen of Death!!! These things can happen with Linux and with Windows. No OS is perfect and we have to mitigate problems before they occur.
Please, don't give up just yet - You can and will be able to fix this, with help.
Oh, I'm not throwing in the towel on Linux, don't worry. Windows is an "under duress only" OS for me now. Yes, I'll be making use of Timeshift going forward. I'm aggravated because if the problem really is just display driver/kernel incompatibility, 550 has been out for a while now, and even if they don't default us to it, including it in the options for additional drivers would let us make the switch more easily, and (hopefully) resolve this with less frustration.
I got a recovery mode boot working and have root with a command prompt, so I'm in the slow process of running cp -r on every directory under home. Fortunately, I had the really huge stuff on another drive, symlinked into home, so the worst of it is already safe. I just need to get myriad smaller files off the encrypted partition before I wipe the drive Zorin is on and begin anew.
This is what you need to do to see the GRUB menu at boot time to be able to see advanced options (earlier kernels). The GRUB is hidden by default. This is how to get it to show:
Here is an Explanation for the 6.8 Kernel/Nvidia Driver Issue:
Because the 550 Driver is a newer One could explain why it isn't listed. To install them do the Following:
Uninstall the existing Driver with the Terminal Command sudo apt remove nvidia* libnvidia*
Install the 550 Driver with the Command sudo apt install nvidia-driver-550
You can find the Driver in the Repo's if You want check that before with apt list nvidia-driver-550
@Aravisian Many thanks! Your instructions solved it outright. Also, as @Ponce-De-Leon mentioned moments ago, ZorinGroup's added the 550s to the official list of additional drivers, which should make solving this vastly easier for everyone, as noted above. I'll drop by the thread and thank them for doing that/politely request they update available drivers a bit more aggressively (without making them default for those who don't update quickly of course).
@applecheeks37 A further thanks to you, since the thread you linked provided the same instructions as Aravisian, minus a few specifics about driver to select and X-Swat updates. If I'd seen that before I broke my drivers with Nvidia's official installer, I might have been fixed before Aravisian even got here.
@swarfendor437 Thank you for the GRUB help. I'll be starting an Obsidian Notes vault for tips that have helped me or which I suspect will in the future, and that'll definitely go in there, even if GRUB started showing itself due to failed boots this time.
Please write the Terminal commands exactly as they go into Terminal. I'm cutting and pasting to get the new driver and it's not working as I imagined you have written these instructions.
OK, I'm lost. I followed Aravisian commands above in post #9 and it's not working for me. Last night my display format switched to something else. I can't find the "Zorin" button. The panel is on top now and unresponsive to me trying to move it. The machine gets hung up easily and stalls. I have no control over the aspect ratio. I'm new at this so please give me exact instructions like Aravisian did above.
OK, so I put in the old driver per Ponce-de-Leon and that allowed me to change the display format back to old familiar territory as you instructed. Thanks team. It was difficult finding buttons and icons and the machine was bogging down terribly.
I think I'm back to normal on the magic box. I shouldn't speak too soon but things seem to be back in the zone. During my little fiasco, I tried to restore a backup and just didn't have the choices or buttons to make it happen either. Hat tip to everyone who posted a response to me. I was throwing everything I could at that wall.
Since correcting the my driver/kernel issue, I've noticed some audio skipping on YouTube. A random sound will emerge or something like a record skipping a groove blemish in the audio. Could this be due to this kernel/driver problem? Everything else seems to be working OK.