Ending up with four screens on my laptop display - can't do anything

Question

Just got a new ASUS laptop and every things good with it for the most part.

But when I booted from a Ubuntu USB, I believe it was 14.04.3 or later, before the logo even loaded I was left with two side by side screens. Logo appears (loading ubuntu logo), I hit esc read the commands, I have two screens of commands. Ubuntu loads, I have to ubuntus, this is all on my 17" ASUS laptop screen.

This is such an odd thing, I didn't even try to go any further with installation. And I totally dismissed the idea of even putting it on the computer til I realized I have this account… anyway ideas, suggestions, comments, please.

I'm pretty sure this isn't going to have any resolve at least with this version of ubuntu, here are the photos of what I'm referring to.

There's really a total of four screens I end up with after it loads.

update visit https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI, which states some hardware may not function properly in uefi mode

I turned on legacy mode by disabling secure boot, enabling csm changing a couple other bios settings to allow to boot from legacy... Booted in legacy mode and ended up with a single screen.

unfortunately I'm trying to install an operating system in dual boot mode with windows 10 (uefi mode), so this really isn't any help but still may be important to note that: I receive a black screen when ubuntu loads. By black I mean as if screen is off.

after following the instructions provided below, I wanted to test the graphics card prime and the drivers under ubuntu. the initial boot command worked like a charm. but the drivers-or shall I say wine crashed when trying to run World of Warcraft. I ended with this message:

fixme:d3d:resource_check_usage Unhandled usage flags 0x8. blah@blah:/media/blah/Wireless Duo/Blizzard/World of Warcraft$ err:winediag:xrandr12_init_modes Broken NVIDIA RandR detected, falling back to RandR 1.0. Please consider using the Nouveau driver instead. fixme:heap:HeapSetInformation (nil) 1 (nil) 0 fixme:process:GetLogicalProcessorInformationEx (3,(nil),0x33ef54): stub

Answer 1

This most likely seems to be a graphics drivers related compatibility issue.
You say that you have a new ASUS laptop ... ASUS ships with NVIDIA cards.
As you didn't provide further details, I assume it came with GTX 900 series.
For these new adapters it is recommended to use the latest official drivers.

Boot from Ubuntu USB installation media you have created.
Highlight Try Ubuntu without installing - press the E key.
Now add nouveau.modeset=0 to the end of the linux line.
Press the F10 key to boot into the Ubuntu Live desktop.

Install Ubuntu - when finished - install the NVIDIA drivers.

Boot the computer and when the GRUB menu appears ...
Highlight the Ubuntu menu entry and press the E key.
Add nouveau.modeset=0 to the end of the linux line.
Press the F10 key to boot into the Ubuntu system.

When the login screen appears press Ctrl+Alt+F1.
Enter your user name and the password and execute :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-358 nvidia-prime
sudo reboot  

Notes :

After the drivers are installed adding a boot parameter isn't necessary anymore.
Check whether you have to enable NVIDIA graphics or switchable mode in BIOS.
Install Ubuntu in the same mode as Windows, so select the USB entry with UEFI.
Should there occur problems with nouveau.modeset=0, use nomodeset instead.
Use NVIDIA X Server Settings to switch between intel and NVIDIA graphics card.

USB :

In case no UEFI USB entry is offered in BIOS, create a new installation media.
Use the diskpart tool, open command prompt as administrator and execute :

diskpart
list disk  
select disk *  
clean  
create partition primary  
active  
format fs=fat32 (quick)  
assign letter=**  

Note : * = number of USB drive | ** = select a free drive letter.
Mount Ubuntu ISO file and copy the content to the USB drive.