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I am having problems installing the Ubuntu on my device. My Acer Aspire 3 A315-23-R4B9 laptop apparently has problems with support for Linux systems, but I hope that this can be fixed. When starting from the USB drive, Ubuntu always hangs on the Splash boot screen.

Note: I have Windows pre-installed on my laptop. I want to uninstall Windows and install Ubuntu.

I have also checked the ISO.

Checking the ISO

Acer splash screen when it's stuck:

enter image description here

I disabled all possible items in the BIOS, tried different ISO images, but all to no avail. The Ubuntu installation comes to boot and freezes on the Acer splash screen. I think that the problem is in the drivers that are not in the Ubuntu kernel for my hardware.

enter image description here

BIOS:

enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here

Boot screen:

my Linux boot

Boot without splash gets stuck too:

enter image description here

Also my BIOS does not support Legacy, the item with the boot mode selection is inactive:

enter image description here

Ok guys, I have good news (or not). I just decided to boot with the ssd drive of my laptop disabled, namely in the Advanced tab in the BIOS, in the Storage Device Configuration I disabled HDD1 and Live USB Ubuntu booted without problems, I checked all the functions and absolutely all the sound works, adjusting the brightness of the screen keyboard touchpad and etc. no errors, everything is in order with the drivers. It turns out it's only about my SSD, but when it is disabled in the BIOS, I certainly cannot install anything and this is a problem that I did not solve.

enter image description here

Egor Ship
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  • I downloaded different iso from different browsers many times, besides, the live usb prepared by me successfully boots on another laptop, unfortunately this is not the case, it would be too simple) – Egor Ship Oct 02 '20 at 15:46
  • Do you have any important files to back up? If yes, please back up. – Random Person Oct 03 '20 at 08:35
  • Ok, there is nothing important there now – Egor Ship Oct 03 '20 at 08:38
  • Do check this post: https://askubuntu.com/q/162075/1103140 – Random Person Oct 04 '20 at 14:42
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    I won't debate whether your bios will or won't support Legacy boot, but I will throw this out there, I have V1.01. it was supported it on that version. and I remember how hard it was to boot my Legacy install. It took the correct combination of usb settings and UEFI boot settings for the usb boot to be recognized. Selecting one setting revealed related settings on a different screen and then I still had to make the right choice and order. I definitely remember InsydeH20! after I figured out all the nuances, I was able to go with the UEFI boot, but i thought the install was impossible at first – WU-TANG Oct 06 '20 at 02:23
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    ....is usb boot enabled??? i'm starting to remember pieces... i think that triggered the UEFI boot options or vice versa??? – WU-TANG Oct 06 '20 at 03:09
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    look at these https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/110162/Add+Boot+Option+using+Insydeh20+setup+utility – WU-TANG Oct 06 '20 at 03:10
  • I reckon the USB is the problem and it's worth reformatting to make UEFI happy. From a windoze CMD line type diskpart then list disk then select disk # then format fs=fat32 quick then exit and then just copy your iso file to the USB (xcopy is the command but I can't remember the parameters). – darth_epoxy Oct 07 '20 at 07:44
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    Do you have an option called "USB legacy" or something related. I believe it was hidden under a sub menu... like usb configuration or something... On another note, I also remember (from a totally different bios/uefi from yours) something called CSM support that needed to be enabled to support legacy booting for that particular laptop... – WU-TANG Oct 08 '20 at 01:10
  • I have added all the information about my BIOS in the question, please see – Egor Ship Oct 08 '20 at 08:36
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    well.. i know you said you disabled secure boot and youre probably just testing again and turned it back on... but i'd turn it back off.(and when you turn it back off, see if the menus options have changed on the other screens)... Under "Storage Device Configuration" does it say anything about USB behavior? I'd enable the F12 boot menu, just because it may be handy.... Under Boot Priority Order, if you select the windows selection, does it take you to another menu where you have choices, if your bootable USB is also plugged in? – WU-TANG Oct 08 '20 at 09:31
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    @EgorShip Please turn off fast boot and try again. – Random Person Oct 08 '20 at 11:39
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    Yes.... turn off fastboot... not only that.. see if disabling it opens up any other options on other screens. On some PCs, fastboot only allows booting from the hard drive... Good eye, I missed that... – WU-TANG Oct 08 '20 at 12:17
  • What about just disabling the SSD as a boot option, rather than disabling it entirely? Well you know the usb is good and will work, so you can at least put that thought to rest... Like i said, It's just going to be figuring out nuances with that particular UEFI... you'll eventually get it.... before your discovery, did you try disabling the fastboot like technastic_tc suggested? – WU-TANG Oct 09 '20 at 01:25
  • Oh sure. I disabled Fast Boot and Secure boot. – Egor Ship Oct 09 '20 at 05:42
  • But it is worth saying that with disabled SSD Ubuntu boots even with standard BIOS settings. – Egor Ship Oct 09 '20 at 05:46
  • Can i somehow disabled ssd initialization on Linux boot? I think this might help. – Egor Ship Oct 09 '20 at 05:53
  • I also have some thoughts about the fact that in my laptop wdc pc sn520 sdapnuw-256g-1014 NVMe, maybe Linux does not have NVMe support or something else – Egor Ship Oct 09 '20 at 17:34
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    what are the options under Storage Device Configuration? – WU-TANG Oct 10 '20 at 22:21
  • there are only two items HDD1 and HDD0 which have only two Enabled / Disabled positions my SSD is installed in the HDD1 slot – Egor Ship Oct 10 '20 at 22:29
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    2 things... Can you select the USB into HDD0? and Can you select windows and choose something other than Windows(even none) to boot from on the boot menu... Can you change the boot priority at all to boot the USB first? – WU-TANG Oct 10 '20 at 23:27
  • HDD0 is just another SATA slot in my laptop, nothing is connected to it. Yes, I can change the boot priority in the BIOS and I boot the GRUB Ubuntu bootloader without any problems from a USB flash drive, the hang itself occurs already at the boot stage of the system itself – Egor Ship Oct 11 '20 at 12:22
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    If you have another USB available, can you make a 18.04 install USB and try that and see if it is the same result? I saw something on another question about 20.04 with the same issue, but not 18.04 – WU-TANG Oct 11 '20 at 12:44

9 Answers9

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I bought A315-23 laptop a few days back, and stumbled upon the same problem. Long story short, solution is to set nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=5500 kernel option at boot. Then installation works out-of-box. After installing the same option needs to be added to grub (edit /etc/default/grub followed with update-grub).

Longer story, how I found solution: As described, we both can initiate a boot but a hang happens along the way. I had little hope the problem being connected to UEFI, still tried to play a little with fast-boot and secure-boot options without success. Given Egor reported system boots correctly after disabling SSD (which was an excellent hint), I tried to follow this path. The laptop has WD 2018/PC SN520 NVMe SSD. I found a suggestion how to fix the problem at https://community.wd.com/t/linux-support-for-wd-black-nvme-2018/225446/7.

  1. In the GRUB boot menu, press e to edit startup parameter. Add nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=5500 after the end of "quiet splash"
    Ctrl-x to boot up, the installer should detect this disk in partition step.
  2. After finishing finish installation, press shift while power on to enter GRUB again, add the same kernel parameter nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=5500, Ctrl-x to boot up.
  3. You will see Ubuntu boot up successfully, edit /etc/default/grub, add parameter nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=5500 again, execute sudo update-grub so that every time boot up will contain this parameter in the grub automatically, no more manual editing is necessary.
karel
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Adam N
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Acer machines appear to all have boot code which automatically looks for a Windows boot directory. I've found you can fool them into thinking they're running Windows, whereas they're actually running Ubuntu simply by a directory copy & one file rename.

This is how I did it,

  1. Make Ubuntu installation USB

  2. Boot from installation USB & install Ubuntu (given choices I prefer to scrub the whole of the hard drive and do minimal install). At this point you'll probably find you get boot fails if you try to re-boot from hard drive

  3. Boot once again from your Ubuntu installation USB and run a Live (Try) Ubuntu session

  4. Open a terminal, then go through these steps to copy the Ubuntu boot directory into Microsoft boot directory space

    sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt
cd /mnt
ls
cd EFI
ls
sudo mkdir Microsoft
cd Microsoft
sudo mkdir Boot
cd Boot
sudo cp -r /mnt/EFI/ubuntu/* .
sudo mv shimx64.efi bootmgfw.efi

and hey presto! it boots, and the 'Windows Boot Manager' magically puts 'Windows Boot' (which is now actually Ubuntu 20.04) to the top of the list in the F2 boot menu.

Note: I've got an Acer ES1-132 but suspect most Acer machines are the same

Warning: You may need to run through steps 3) & 4) again if the boot directory changes in the future, but this can be done without loss of data or any need to re-install Ubuntu. This happened to me once in last 4 years.

Steve Crowe
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    the problem is that even the Live USB Ubuntu does not boot, the process does not even reach the start of the installation – Egor Ship Oct 08 '20 at 11:47
  • Egor - Apologies, I misunderstood your problem, I thought you had boot problems after installing, not directly during USB installation. I also didn't want to get into the weeds of which switches were on/off in the BIOS. I'll have a think & look to see if I can shed any more light. – Steve Crowe Oct 08 '20 at 13:47
  • Egor. Not much new, & difficult to recall problems I've had with Acer's in past. One solution I ran with for about a year before I found better one was, I think, using Rufus & making bootable USB with rEFInd on it, which allowed me to dual boot to either Windows or Ubuntu on hard drive, or boot other low level utils. Don't know if you know rEFInd, might work, but bit of daunting messy webpage which you may get lost in. I'll try to point you to bits to make a bootable USB if you think it's worth persuing. https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ – Steve Crowe Oct 08 '20 at 16:39
  • Worked for me with an Acer Travelmate P-495-G2-M. A standard install would either endlessly boot with a "System reset", or not accept any of the four EFI files present in the other directories. Good job. – baloan Feb 06 '22 at 21:38
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In some laptops I found problems booting with USB 3, and I had to use USB 2.0. In some others, I had problems booting with all USB sticks but I had not problems booting from a USB DVD player/recorder, so that's the last resource, to toast one DVD with the ISO and boot from an external USB DVD drive.

Also the last line of your screenshot said that the job have been running for 14 seconds of a max of 3 minutes. Can you provide a screenshot of the final outcome, after having waited at least 5 minutes?.

Also try to disable in BIOS any power saving features and disconnect any external device (external monitor, other USBs except the one using for booting ofc) before starting.

Carles Mateo
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  • Thank you, unfortunately I do not have an external usb-dvd drive, the counter in the last line of the screenshot always reaches 30 seconds and freezes completely and nothing new appears on the screen – Egor Ship Oct 07 '20 at 23:44
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To switch BIOS between UEFI and legacy you may need to set a BIOS password (you do not have to enable BIOS locking though). Don't forget to keep a note as recovering a BIOS password is uncomfortable.

https://uk.answers.acer.com/app/answers/list/search/1/kw/UEFi%20to%20legacy/suggested/1

Crighton
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Although I believe the right combination of UEFI settings will allow the install (but my experience with that UEFI was with a much earlier version and sounds like it may be a bit different)....

This is a workaround to get your install done. Power down the machine and one of the machines that you said you don't have a problem installing on.

Remove the drives from those machines. Place your target drive in the non-problematic machine and complete your install (without secure boot or any type of security). Put it back in your troublesome laptop and boot it up.

Caveat.... Now, I will say... my experience(with that UEFI) when I WAS able to install in legacy mode, the install finished, but the boot problems were plentiful... So I worked until I figured out the nuances of the UEFI(like i mentioned in the comments)... So their may be a chance that even when you get your drive installed and working on the other machine, you may very well have the same issue of being able to boot.

I wish I could offer more, but without seeing all the options on your UEFI and how they react with each other, it's hard to say which way to go. There seem to be a lot of googling of "insydeh20 no legacy boot" with mixed results... I'd still try some of those solutions first. They may lead you to the proper answer.... But, anytime I have been defeated by UEFI/BIOS/LEGACY/SECURE/ETC problems, I have had success doing the solution that I suggested above.

WU-TANG
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  • I have added all the information about my BIOS/UEFI in the question, please see – Egor Ship Oct 08 '20 at 08:36
  • I thought about what you said, but at the moment I no longer have access to another machine – Egor Ship Oct 08 '20 at 08:41
  • It already seems to me that the BIOS and possibly the motherboard of my laptop are sharpened for Windows 10 and therefore there are big problems with Linux, I heard that new motherboards may simply not support Legacy mode. It would also be worth clarifying that this situation occurs not only with ubuntu but also with any other Linux distribution, I have tried many – Egor Ship Oct 08 '20 at 08:46
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I noticed on your security screen that "Secure Boot" was still enabled, although you said you disabled it. Some BIOS have a constraint that "Secure Boot" cannot be disabled unless the supervisor password is set.

Therefore, you could try setting the supervisor password and then disable secure boot. If it still doesn't work, check that the secure boot is still disabled. If it isn't disabled, try "Erase all secure boot setting" and disable secure boot again. (You can always reset the default secure boot settings, so the action shouldn't be irrevocable.)

Craig Hicks
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Acer UEFI/BIOS has an extra step which has been addressed in a different way in one of the answers above (by Steve Crow). Follow these steps:

They assume that you are installing Ubuntu, but might also be required for booting from a Live USB

  1. Make sure your UEFI is up to date.
  2. In UEFI, you must set a supervisor password. Once the supervisor password is set, some new menus are accessible.
  3. Enter the "Select an UEFI file as trusted for executing" menu. It will allow you to declare the newly installed Ubuntu boot image as trusted on your laptop.
  4. Select EMMC >> EFI >> Ubuntu and select the file shimx64.efi. You will be prompted to give it a name of your choice (which will appear in the F12 boot options).
  5. Type the name press Enter and then "Yes" should be highlighted.
  6. Press enter again. Restart the computer without any boot disk and tap F12 during the boot process.
  7. You should now get the boot option menu with the name you chose.
  8. You can change the boot order in UEFI now so that it boots directly to the Grub screen.
  9. Either disable the supervisor password, or save it in a secure place.
Raffles
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  • I tried this and no, doesn't help either. But only I selected USB0 >> EFI >> Ubuntu and there was a mmx64.efi file instead of shimx64.efi – Egor Ship Oct 19 '20 at 00:23
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i think i had same problem too, it may be about you system support only efi boot, or legacy boot, and you try to boot legacy on a efi. try booting in efi mode, changing the bios boot to efi and disable legacy mode. if that dont work try to enable legacy mode, and boot without efi..

Andri Nic
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  • But my Bios support only UEFI boot mode, the item with the boot mode selection is inactive, and I tried flash iso with Rufus MBR BIOS or UEFI and GPT UEFI(non CSM) – Egor Ship Sep 24 '20 at 11:01
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Firstly please get a udev log by editing the line in your grub config. During boot up grub would allow you to edit the boot command (probably with Tab). Add udev.log_priority=debug to boot config and boot using the key displayed. (Usually enter if not displayed. Else try c).

This looks like a systemd bug. Try booting into text based installer instead. If it doesn't work, try a newer version of the installer

Rakesh Chowdhury
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    Sorry, I don't quite understand what you are talking about. Windows is installed on my laptop, I want to install Ubuntu by erasing Windows, I write iso Ubuntu with Windows Rufus – Egor Ship Sep 24 '20 at 11:45
  • @EgorShip ok. You're a new Linux user. It's ok. I'll update the answer :) – Rakesh Chowdhury Sep 24 '20 at 11:47
  • I'm used Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20200731) Desktop iso from official site Ubuntu, I boot Ubuntu with udev.log_priority=debug, where I can see log file? Text based installer it's Ubuntu(safe graphics)? Thanks :) – Egor Ship Sep 24 '20 at 12:49
  • @EgorShip To boot into command line use 'text' instead of 'quiet splash' in grub config. Then use startx or xorg to start gui server. And to obtain the logs you'd need to boot into the command line interface as well. – Rakesh Chowdhury Sep 24 '20 at 13:02
  • Ok, when I open setparams 'Ubuntu', erase quiet splash and add text "udev.log_priority=debug" but it's always stuck on "a start job is running for load apparmor profiles" or something. At boot, my laptop stops responding to any commands like keyboard and mouse, so I can't do anything else like forcibly turning it off with the power button – Egor Ship Sep 25 '20 at 08:32
  • I tried boot it's with parameter nomodeset, acpi=off, pci=off, nouveau.modeset=0 or something, but it's no work – Egor Ship Sep 25 '20 at 08:35