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Sorry to bother, I hope everything is fine.

Today I received my laptop, an Acer Aspire 5 (A515-44G-R9YM - with the Ryzen 7 4700U one). It came with Free DOS and I've tried to install Ubuntu on it. I did this with a live USB(downloaded Rufus and Ubuntu 20.4 iso from their official website) and everything went smooth during the whole installation process. However, after the install I was prompted to restart the laptop. I initiated the restart. During the boot up process, I could only see ACER's SPLASH image after which I got a black screen and on the left top corner there was a little underline sign that kept flashing every 0.5 seconds. I've waited, and waited, and waited, and nothing happened.

Since then, I've reinstalled Ubuntu 5 times! Each time, I got the same issue. I tried to install Ubuntu 18.04, and this time I got this output on my laptop screen :

dev/nvme0n1p2 clear .... blocks ....

To be honest, in the BIOS interface there weren't many options and settings to check. My USB stick got detected by the laptop(I know that for sure because I used 2 different ones) but not under its name, under "Linpus Linux" or something. And there was no setting such as Legacy USB support to enable and help me out or something. To be honest, it's my first time installing Linux on my system (I've been a Windows user for over 11 years now), so it's most likely that I've missed something. Does anyone know what I can do ?

Thank you all for your time !

shardul
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  • By the way, if I press F2 while I am stuck in that blackscreen, there appears of the left corners some errors saying : "debugfs: File 'le_min(or max)key_size' in directory 'hc10' already present!". – shardul Oct 22 '20 at 15:45
  • If it came with DOS, you probably have MBR partitioning. Windows requires gpt partitioning for UEFI install, but Ubuntu will let you install to the now 35 year old BIOS(msdos) partitioning in UEFI mode and probably should not. If DOS, be sure to backup drive first as conversion to gpt will erase it. UEFI/gpt partitioning in Advance, new versions do not need swap partition: http://askubuntu.com/questions/743095/how-to-prepare-a-disk-on-an-efi-based-pc-for-ubuntu & https://askubuntu.com/questions/343268/how-to-use-manual-partitioning-during-installation – oldfred Oct 22 '20 at 20:30
  • Short update: yesterday I've needed the laptop to do some work, so because I couldn't manage to get Ubuntu install done, I've installed Windows. Then, I've split the disk to install Ubuntu as a dual-boot, but the same error occurred. I think and hope I've divided the disk space the right way. If it's needed im going to uninstall Windows again. – shardul Oct 23 '20 at 20:46

1 Answers1

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Acer BIOS/UEFI often has an extra menu only accessible if you set a supervisor password. Acers are notoriously difficult to install Linux on.

Try these steps:

They assume that you have installed Ubuntu, but some steps might also be required for booting from a Live USB

Always make sure your UEFI is up to date. If you can't access the TRUSTED menu, you may have to mount the EFI partition.

To mount the EFI partition, you need to:

  1. Install Ubuntu; (You should have done this already)

  2. Boot into a live session using your Ubuntu USB and select "Try without installing";

  3. Launch Gparted to get the EFI partition address. I think yours is dev/nvme0n1p2 from what you posted above but it might not be. If not, or you don't know, post a screenshot of GParted.

  4. While still in the live session, Open the Terminal (ctrl + alt + T);

  5. In the Terminal execute the following to create a directory in the "media" folder and to mount the EFI partition to that folder:

    sudo mkdir /media/EFI

    sudo mount dev/nvme0n1p2 /media/EFI (Or change dev/nvme0n1p2 to whatever you found in GParted).

*Update

While in the terminal,

sudo mkdir /media/EFI/EFI/Linux

sudo cp -R /media/EFI/EFI/ubuntu /media/EFI/EFI/Linux

  1. Exit the live session and reboot into UEFI
  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. (It might have a different name on your machine eg. Linux) 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.

Hopefully Ubuntu will boot.

Raffles
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  • I've set a supervisor password, but that didn't unlocked "Select an UEFI file as trusted for executing" or others options, just "Change TPM State / Clear TPM". I would've posted some photos but I can't do it there. I don't know what to do anymore to be honest.. – shardul Oct 23 '20 at 20:17
  • Perseverance, we will find the solution. If you can take pictures with your cellphone of the BIOS/UEFI they will help. It seems that ACER has changed the BIOS/UEFI, but we can figure it out. – Raffles Oct 23 '20 at 20:53
  • There are some photos I took yesterday, and the one with 3 boot options(Linpus, Windows and ubuntu) is the one I took today - https://imgur.com/a/2MRcvlP . Yesterday I needed the laptop to do some work so I quickly installed Windows 10. After that, I tried to split the disk space to install Ubuntu as a dual-boot, but the same error occurred. I'm sorry if I wrote something technically wrong, but I am a Windows user since 2008 and I haven't encounter any hard problem like this one when I've installed it. With that being said, as you can see, I'm kind of new in this "section". – shardul Oct 23 '20 at 21:07
  • Please persevere, Ubuntu is a great operating system and once you master it, you will never look back. I only use Windows for stubborn programs that refuse to work on Ubuntu, and then it's Windows 7. Can you get a picture of the Security Tab when you enter a Supervisor password (always write it down, and for the exercise , it can be simple). – Raffles Oct 23 '20 at 21:32
  • Yes, I want to install Ubuntu and use it on my laptop from now on, but it is frustrating that I progress so hard from day to day. However I hope I will succeed. There are 2 photos: one with and one without supervisor password set - https://imgur.com/a/zshRjB9 . – shardul Oct 24 '20 at 15:31
  • @shardul With the supervisor password set, can you access the "Select an UEFI file as trusted for executing" menu? – Raffles Oct 24 '20 at 15:49
  • Nope, I don't. I can acces only the blue colored ones. – shardul Oct 24 '20 at 17:01
  • @shardul I will add something to my answer above, because maybe your EFI partition is not mounted which is why you can't access the Trusted menu, there is nothing in it. – Raffles Oct 24 '20 at 18:30
  • So what should I do then ? – shardul Oct 24 '20 at 19:02
  • @shardul I added some steps to my answer starting from "To mount the EFI partition.....", follow them and then go to step 3 in the first part of the answer. Lemme know if this works. – Raffles Oct 24 '20 at 19:05
  • I can't boot into a live session because when I try it, I get that blackscreen again... I don't know why because yesterday it worked.. – shardul Oct 24 '20 at 19:35
  • Make sure you didn't enable secure boot by mistake. Then try this answer. Once you are able to boot into a live session, try the steps above. – Raffles Oct 24 '20 at 20:06
  • I didn't enable secure boot, and I just reinstalled Ubuntu 2 times but it still doesn't work sadly. – shardul Oct 24 '20 at 20:30
  • @shardul I added two commands and adjusted the sequence to your circumstances, but if you follow everything and it still doesn't work, I'm stumped. Please install Ubuntu 20.04, and only try 18.04 if 20 doesn't work. – Raffles Oct 24 '20 at 21:11
  • Ok that's the strangest and most stupid I've seen. I tried today again to install Ubuntu(to go live session and do what you've asked), but I've downloaded the new 20.10 version. I pressed "Try Ubuntu", it worked, so then I tried to install it, I restarted the laptop and surprisingly it worked. I think that's all ? – shardul Oct 25 '20 at 08:37
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    @shardul yes, and if you open Software and Updates, in the Updates tab, Notify me of a new Ubuntu version: select "for long term support versions" so you can change to a long term support version in the future, as the version you have is only supported for a year. Good luck! – Raffles Oct 25 '20 at 10:35
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    I did @Raffles. Thank you for all the support and interventions, and apologies for the insistence. Have a good day ! – shardul Oct 25 '20 at 12:23