Do you have a USB that can boot with the live distro? If so, you could get access to your content that way. And kudos for complete backup! The live distro will possibly help diagnose any problems with your system. My guess is that the easiest solution (others may give different opinions, and I hope they do, as there are several possible solutions I'm sure) is to get a USB with the latest Mint suitable for your hardware and "install", then copy back your files. For copying back, I like a 2-pane file manager, and use Double Commander, or else midnight commander in a terminal. Let us know how you get on. John Nash On 2020-11-27 1:53 p.m., Callie Jones wrote: > My o/s is about 4 yrs old (Mint 17). It has been running fine although I had been thinking about upgrading as I was > aware the system wasn't up to speed anymore and was gradually slowing down. The problem is I am not a tech savvy person > at all so would need outside help. In any case, when the pandemic started I knew I would not be upgrading any time soon > and hoped all would be well. > > All was well until a couple of days ago, when out of the blue, the green "show desktop" icon in the lower left corner of > the panel was blank, no content at all. Right clicking displayed, the 2 options: 1) About... and 2) Remove This Applet. > Single clicking resulted in the screen going blank or reverting to the background image. > > I can not access anything through the desktop as all content has just disappeared! Therefore I have no access to any > programs, such as GIMP which I use all the time, and word files that I use daily for my work. Everything else is still > functioning so my work is not being hampered at this point, however there is no way to know if something more severe is > imminent. I have done a complete backup just in case. > > I would appreciate any input on this matter. > > Marlene To unsubscribe send a blank message to linux+unsubscribe [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org To get help send a blank message to linux+help [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org To visit the archives: https://lists.linux-ottawa.org