[sp00ky]

Ok, I set up a machine a week ago with the current version of linux mint and kodi. I had it boot to the desktop and, from there, I would either open kodi or firefox to stream netflix.

At some random point a day or two ago, kodi became self-aware and started autostarting on boot. I can't minimize the window, I can't quit it. Rebooting the machine yields the same result. Even the sound is different. Before I'd get the standard chirp from linux mint, now the volume indicator is in kodi itself.

I have no idea how this happened or how to fix it.

[black_eagle]

Sounds like you have auto-login enabled and you have somehow picked the Kodi session (or your window manager doesn't remember which session was last used) at the login screen. 

If that is the case, you can connect to your machine using ssh on another laptop/pc/phone and login using your usual username and password.  Mint Cinnamon uses LightDM as a window manager.  If auto-login is enabled, in a terminal do cd /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d

Next do sudo nano 70-linuxmint.conf

Scroll down the file until you find the line

php:
[SeatDefaults]

Underneath that is (probably) a line that says user-session=kodi.  If so, you could just change that to user-session=cinnamon but it's probably better to find the lines

php:
autologin-guest=false

autologin-user=<your-user-name>

autologin-user-timeout=0

and add a # at the beginning of autologin-user=<your-user-name>  and autologin-user-timeout=0.  Press <CTRL> + o (letter oh) to write the change to disk and then <CTRL> + x to exit the editor.  Reboot PC and you should be presented with the login screen, from where you will likely find you can pick the normal desktop session or the Kodi session.

[sp00ky]

So, I noticed when I exited kodi it would go back to the login screen. I finally figured out that I can log out and log in using the normal profile. Thanks for the help!