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I am attempting to install Ubuntu 17.04 on a Dell XPS 15 via bootable USB drive. I progress through the first few slides in the installation process just fine, but when it comes time to allocate space on the SSD, Ubuntu skips asking me what "installation type" I would prefer, and instead proceeds directly to the "something else" option that involves manually partitioning the drive. When I quit the installation process, Ubuntu strangely goes to a login screen, where it accepts any username I type in but determines any password to be incorrect. Furthermore, my SSD has four empty partitions of 1.12 GB, 11.94 GB, 450 MB, and 500 MB apiece that I believe were created during separate installation attempts. I am really at a loss, as I have never experienced an installation process like this before. Is there a fixable bug that I am not aware of that could be causing this?

Aldous Tuxley
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  • The login screen you see is the live image. Yes it does not have any specific user that's why it probably accepts anything you type in. Your partition problem is a differen one. It seems your SSD is already partitioned, try manually deleting those and reinstalling. If it still doesn't work just do in manually, don't see the problem. Would recommend /home being seperated from / and swap should be ~2 times your ram (depends strongly on how much ram you have it could also be enough to have 1:1). – Ziazis Jul 07 '17 at 06:35
  • Don't think it is a bug. More likely, the installer detects four primary partitions, in which case it can't create any more partitions, and so, it offers the user to deal with it. – mikewhatever Jul 07 '17 at 07:26
  • @Ziazis In 17.04, Ubuntu uses swap files as default, and not swap partitions. https://askubuntu.com/a/910300/179747 – mgor Jul 07 '17 at 08:09
  • You are right about that mgor, haven't looked into 17.04 too much myself yet. But I prefer using the LTS versions anyway. – Ziazis Jul 07 '17 at 08:21
  • @mikewhatever They appear to be Windows partitions, so I doubt that they would be causing the issue. I assumed they were created by Ubuntu, but that appears to be incorrect. – Aldous Tuxley Jul 07 '17 at 18:13

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An inability to do anything but a manual partitioning ("Something Else") installation is a common complaint when installing a dual-boot with Windows 8 or later. I'm not sure offhand if this is an issue related to EFI/UEFI-mode installation per se or if it's related to the notorious Windows Fast Startup and Hibernate features. These related features turn an ordinary shutdown operation into a suspend-to-disk operation, which leaves filesystems in an inconsistent state that's unsafe for sharing with other OSes. The Ubuntu installer might be detecting this and therefore refusing to provide options to resize the Windows partitions, thus closing off the usual "install alongside" type options.

Thus, one thing you might try is to disable both Fast Startup and Hibernate, as described in the links in the previous paragraph. Note that this is a critical part of a dual-boot installation with Windows 8 or later. Even aside from the installation issues, these features make it unsafe to share data between the two OSes. On EFI-based computers, even the EFI System Partition (ESP; where boot loaders are stored) is likely to be affected, which can produce all sorts of weird boot problems.

If disabling Fast Startup and Hibernate doesn't help, then the only solution is to use the "Something Else" installation option, as described here. Given your description, I recommend using Ubuntu in its "try before installing" mode to launch GParted on the disk to remove any partitions that might be left over from previous installation attempts first. You could optionally create partitions for Ubuntu in GParted at this time, too. Be 100% sure that any partitions you delete really are left over from previous Ubuntu installation attempts, though. Modern Windows installations often have several partitions, most or all of which are important to Windows in one way or another, so you should not delete them! Check the filesystem type in GParted. Ubuntu partitions are likely to use ext4fs or Linux swap. Windows partitions are likely to use FAT, NTFS, or have an unidentified filesystem. If you have any doubts, post a question, showing a GParted screen shot or the output of both sudo parted -l and sudo blkid.

Rod Smith
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  • Thanks for the information. I turned off hibernation mode, and still encountered the same problem. I was going to manually partition the drive, but realized that, for some reason, the installer was failing to recognize/modify my partitions: https://askubuntu.com/questions/932997/why-cannot-the-ubuntu-installer-recognize-my-ssd. If you have any knowledge of what is going on here, it would be greatly appreciated. – Aldous Tuxley Jul 07 '17 at 18:10