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I've had this problem for a while. I reluctently just used windows. I no longer wish to be without linux on my laptop. Why is this happening:

Either with CD or USB install the installer cannot get past bootup (it stops at the kubuntu splash). With nomodeset it sometimes manges to get to the run or install option, but freezes shortly after. I eventually managed to get it installed by adding noapic acpi=off and nomodeset together as a last ditch effort.

However with these options on its just, terrible. It doesn't show battery options, the keyboard, even on a light and fast keypress, occasionally spams keys as if I had been holding them down for several seconds. As well as not being able to install AMD drivers without adding --force. Which I just tried and now it starts without a GUI. Attempting to load the GUI with the startx command also fails.

My laptop is a Clevo P570WM with Intel i7-3970X CPU and 2x AMD Radeon HD 7970M GPU's. The Ubuntu distro is Kubuntu 14.04 x64.

Edit: Forgot to say I also tried to fix the problem by updating the kernel to 3.14.1-generic, didn't help.

CGar
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  • did you try using only nomodeset? acpi=off is optional usually - what ubuntu do you use? – Lynob Jun 28 '14 at 20:39
  • Yea I think u missed that. In the 2nd paragraph I said "With nomodeset it sometimes manges to get to the run or install option, but freezes shortly after." – CGar Jun 28 '14 at 20:56
  • ok what ubuntu version do you use? – Lynob Jun 28 '14 at 21:18
  • I used Kubuntu 14.04 x64. I'll add that to the post, only added it as tags sorry. – CGar Jun 28 '14 at 21:33
  • may I suggest that you use xubuntu instead? i have nomodeset problem, kde desktops doesn't seen to work, xfce desktops work, I didn't even have to set nomodeset in xubuntu – Lynob Jun 28 '14 at 22:12
  • Same problem. Boots up the USB, shows the icon at the bottom where you can press F6 to change boot options. After that, nothing. With nomodeset added it gets further. Loads xubuntu but after a few seconds just totally freezes. Didn't try it with acpi=off since these are the exact symptoms kubuntu had and kubuntu would ideally be my 1st choice. – CGar Jun 29 '14 at 01:19
  • please install kubuntu using the minimal disk, instructions shown in my previous answer here http://askubuntu.com/questions/475138/how-do-i-solve-system-is-running-in-low-graphics-issue-in-ubuntu-installer/479356#479356 once installed, we will fix all issues afterwards – Lynob Jun 29 '14 at 08:03
  • ok whatever you want, ask it there and I will be notified and reply – Lynob Jun 29 '14 at 12:33

1 Answers1

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The solution was to reinstall kubuntu 14.04 with the standard desktop live CD with extra boot options other than acpi=off, as that option was the 1 that caused the issues I described.

To get the installer working It needed to be booted with nolapic to prevent freezing and nomodeset for the GUI to show. These options carry over to the installation.

After that installing the AMD fglrx drivers from apt-get allows you to disable nomodeset and boot with only nolapic. That is achieved by editing /etc/default/grub as root, removing nomodeset and then running update-grub as root.


Other problems that occurred were:

The installer freezing at 93% when copying logs. To remedy that simply reboot. Its late enough in the install process to be inconsequential. Change to another tty, eg tty1 by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 if the "Try Kubuntu" option wasn't used. Then run the reboot command.

Grub failing to find the UUID of the boot partition. To remedy, reorder the HDD's in your bios such that the boot drive where kubuntu is installed is 1st.

CGar
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