@John Keenan (PurpleSprite) can you provide the blender.crash.txt (in /tmp/blender.crash.txt)
Also please double-check if the drivers are up to date.
To upgrade to the latest driver, see here for more information: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/troubleshooting/gpu/index.html

@Clément Foucault (fclem), any idea what might have generated those error messages?

Blender 2.90.0, Commit date: 2020-08-31 11:26, Hash 0330d1af29c0

backtrace

/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender(BLI_system_backtrace+0x20) [0x81fdc60]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender() [0xe231fa]
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(+0x354b0) [0x7f64018434b0]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender(GPU_shader_get_builtin_block+0) [0x6f1b210]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender() [0x1235ca6]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender(DRW_shgroup_create+0x1d) [0x123796d]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender(OVERLAY_outline_cache_init+0xce) [0x126d1ee]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender() [0x126405d]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender() [0x1231cf6]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender(DRW_draw_render_loop_ex+0x45b) [0x123350b]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender(view3d_main_region_draw+0x8f) [0x18930df]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender(ED_region_do_draw+0x811) [0x14871c1]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender(wm_draw_update+0x4da) [0x10de9aa]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender(WM_main+0x30) [0x10dc900]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender(main+0x317) [0xd5ebc7]
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xf0) [0x7f640182e830]
/home/john/Desktop/blender-2.90.0-linux64/blender() [0xe1f9e3]

1. Python backtrace

Same here. I cannot even open Blender 2,90 or 2.91 in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

When attempting to run it, it crashes immediately. (A window does appear at first, but it is washed in gray and disappears within a couple of seconds. Neither the blender screen nor the splash screen or anything recognizable shows up.)

-Will Odendaal

HA it seems someone (me) did not make the linking error more useful. (fixed it in rBcfd9c0c19906)

You can try with the new 2.91 build when it's up. I don't know when but it needs to be more recent than Mon, Sep 14, 12:45 PM.

With the new build you can try using --debug-gpu and --debug-gpu-force-workarounds together and attach the resulting log here. Also please attach you system-info.txt generated when going into the help menu.

This does smell like a pretty old driver bug. Depending on what broke we might find a way to workaround it, but if you can, you may install a more recent driver using a special repository for your distribution.

@Clément Foucault (fclem) -- This does seem to be a "pretty old driver bug" based on some testing with new Blender builds.

Using the same base system as the OP (Linux Mint 18.1, meaning Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial with Minty Serena window dressing) though quite upgraded (many backports) to test Blender builds I received exactly the same error when initially running a new build of 2.90 from the terminal (crash file attached):

GPUShader: linking error:
error: Input block `ShaderStageInterface' is not an output of the previous stage

GPUShader: linking error:
error: Input block `ShaderStageInterface' is not an output of the previous stage

Writing: /tmp/blender.crash.txt
Segmentation fault

This prompted me to upgrade the Xenial-based system from a display driver PPA that I maintain to see if that would fix the issue. After doing so Blender immediately opened successfully. The display PPA upgrades many packages (key ones being Mesa 20.0.8, DRM 2.4.101, and Xorg-Server 1.20.8), so without further debugging it's hard to know what upgrade(s) are critical for Blender. Here's the PPA in question: https://launchpad.net/~savoury1/+archive/ubuntu/display

Anyone wanting to test the new Blender 2.90 builds I've just started putting out (first Launchpad builds today, after some days of testing local builds and debugging) can see my new Blender PPA here: https://launchpad.net/~savoury1/+archive/ubuntu/blender

Rob:

Could you tell me if the instructions you provided with your PPA is the right one for my system running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS?
If updating the display drivers on my system would resolve the issue, then I'd like to do that.

I've attached a system-info.txt file and then information about the kernel and the GPU are as follows:
Kernel: 4.15.0-118-generic
Graphics: VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 5500 (rev 09)

• Will

As soon as I've updated to Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS the problem has been solved. Now Blender 2.9 opens properly.

Willem:

Yes, the instructions at the display PPA I linked (see "Note for Xenial" there) are correct for Ubuntu Xenial 16.04 LTS. Your kernel (4.15) is new enough and you also need at least GCC >= 6 (libstdc++6 and associated libraries) required by LLVM 10.0 at that PPA, which Mesa 20.0.8 is built against. So if you have a new enough GCC already then all you need to do is add the display PPA, otherwise you can also add the toolchain PPA (has GCC 7.5.0 backported) as mentioned in the "Note for Xenial" section of the instructions. As soon as the display drivers were updated on my own Xenial-based systems Blender 2.90 opened successfully.

With Ubuntu Bionic 18.04 LTS it now already includes Mesa 20.0.8 (backported) in the official repos, hence Blender should work fine on that series of Ubuntu without issue, whereas there was never an official backport of Mesa 20.0.8 for Xenial. Providing a newer Mesa for Xenial is one of the key reasons I created that display PPA, as well as the newer Xserver and so on.

Hope you manage to get Blender loading on your Ubuntu 16.04 LTS system!

Rob

Thanks it worked. I upgraded kernel to 4.15, then upgraded gcc, but that gave me up to gcc version 5.4.0., not 6+. I tried installing the ppa anyway and lo and behold, blender seems to work. The only problem I'm having with the ppa is upgrading the mvp (at the bottom of your Xenial notes).

 mpv : Depends: libarchive13 (>= 3.4.0) but 3.2.2-3.1ubuntu1 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Upgrading libarchive13 didn't seem to fix that.

Willem, glad to hear you got Blender opening up on your Xenial 16.04 LTS system! Recent display drivers are clearly needed for newer Blender 2.90+ on the older Ubuntu, due whatever exact display driver features are being used by the latest Blender versions.

Note that ppa:savoury1/toolchain for Xenial systems (added as per the instructions at the display PPA) will not upgrade the actual GCC compilers (ie. gcc and g++) by default, just the common GCC libraries such as libstdc++6 which must be >= 6 for various of the display drivers at that PPA to install (you can check your libstdc++6 version with "apt-cache policy libstdc++6" to confirm it has been upgraded). If you do happen to also want your GCC compilers to be upgraded then you can add ppa:savoury1/gcc-defaults-7 (for GCC 7.5.0) or ppa:savoury1/gcc-defaults-9 (for GCC 9.3.0) which will then upgrade ALL the GCC packages to the specified version.

(Off-topic: relative the mpv upgrade, there were a couple of missing backport libraries needed by mpv that have now been copied to the display PPA, thanks for mentioning the omissions, so the newer mpv should now install successfully for you on Xenial as well.)

Is the issue resolved in recent builds? https://builder.blender.org/download/

I couldn't get the solution to work because it required a newer Python version but that wouldn't default. Blender kept using the older Python version to open up, I'm not too sure where to go from here.

@Ankit Meel (ankitm) it's not fixed in the latest version

I ran into other headaches that I'm still trying to fix. I upgraded the kernel to 4.15 by installing the HWE stack before installing the PPA.
Blender worked, but something (I suspect HWE) messed up a bunch of other packages as well as the GRUB2 multi boot configuration that I'm trying to recover from.
The partition wouldn't boot again.

A couple of comments and observations in response to both @John Keenan (PurpleSprite) and @Willem Odendaal (dexon):

• Blender built with Python 3.8 works fine on Xenial systems, even including Numpy support, with a few simple steps required post-installation (possible even with Python 3.8 not the default Python). See the Blender PPA that I'm now maintaining for builds of Blender with Python 3.8 for Xenial, plus some notes about getting Numpy support working with non-default Python.

• Personal experience with the HWE stack on Xenial (on my systems) wasn't great, with various issues cropping up that resulted in me purging all HWE packages. This was all part of why I embarked on directly backporting much of the display drivers stack from newer Ubuntu releases to Xenial, so that newer (than early 2016) display cards/drivers work well with a Xenial-based system.

• On my own Xenial-based systems I run kernel 4.19 from the Ubuntu mainline builds (4.19 is LTS so maintained for six years, and in more than a year of testing it is rock solid for me). Also, Ukuu (Ubuntu kernel update utility) can be used to easily install any mainline kernels (as it happens it's available at my utillities PPA here https://launchpad.net/~savoury1/+archive/ubuntu/utilities).

Using a combination of Blender (or Blender git) from my PPA, with the display PPA upgrades, along with Ubuntu mainline kernel 4.19.x, Blender appears to run well on Xenial-based systems (though testing has not been super comprehensive, but no notable errors).

Rob, once again. Thanks for valuable response.
I'm not sure if this is the right place to continue discussing the Linux ppa. Would you mind sending me an email to connect offline?
dexington@yahoo.com
~ Will

Just updated mesa via PPA and the error was gone:

1. Open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T or by searching for ‘Terminal’ from software launcher. When it opens, run command:
   
   `sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/updates```

Type your password (no asterisks while typing due to security reason) when it prompts and hit Enter to continue.

2. After adding the PPA, do system update via command:
   
   `sudo apt-get dist-upgrade```

Link with instructions found here:

https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2018/06/install-mesa-18-1-1-ppa-ubuntu-18-04/