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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:

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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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9 Answers9

7

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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3

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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2

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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1

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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1

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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1

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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1

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.
0

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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0

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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