Some of you may remember that I endeavored to learn more about the Gnome DE by creating a VM that I could experiment with, but after several days and help from the forum, I've given up on that idea. I decided to use an empty 2.5" SSD to just install it there, and run it on one of my desktop machines. Both of those have docks that allow me to swap 2.5" drives in and out, so it's not like I need to dedicate the whole machine to something that may or may not work. I can easily and immediately return the machine to its former status regardless of how my Gnome adventure turns out. If this topic doesn't interest you, please stop here, and I promise there will be no hurt feelings!
As it happens, my attempts have been no more successful on a desktop machine than they were with the VM. For example, after one installation attempt and reboot, the desktop started up asking for the Live user's password. And that was without the USB installer plugged in. It was booting from the newly written SSD and didn't recognize my user name. After numerous tries, I finally got the installation to complete successfully, I thought, but no GUI appeared.
I logged onto a TTY and started an upgrade session. I thought perhaps installing the 400-some upgrades might fix it for me, but no such luck. The result after a reboot is the same black screen with a red block cursor, non-blinking, in the upper left corner. The particular machine I used has previously run all three other versions of Solus, so I'm pretty sure it's not a matter of missing drivers.
Has anyone with more Gnome experience than I have experienced this situation, and figured out how to fix it? Please note that I did search the forum before writing all this, but got no useful results.
