2

I would describe myself as quite familiar with Linux and Linux installations and I use Ubuntu every day at work, however I have been completely unable to install 12.10 on my new alienware laptop at home.

I boot from a 12.10 ISO and I can get to the installer, however no matter which options I select (try Ubuntu or install) the installation process starts and eventually I get a black screen and the computer just hangs there indefinitely.

I have tried standard 'legacy boot' and UEFI booting, following the respective forum guides for each. I have also tried installing using 'nomodeset' and on one occasion 'acpi=off' without success.

The furthest the installation has gotten is simply to the Ubuntu splash screen with the little boxes underneath. No further than this, and certainly not to the point where I can select any other options.

The laptop specs are:

Alienware M17x: Standard base
Processor i7-3740QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.7Ghz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0) (this is disabled in the BIOS currently)
Display is WideFHJD (1920x1080) WLED LCD
Memory - 12288 1600 MHz Dual Channel DDR3
Graphics: 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M

I'm installing onto a fresh SSD with no previous grub / Linux installations. All it has on it currently is a fresh install of Windows 7 ultimate, which I haven't even logged into yet.

There is no BIOS option to specifically disable optimus if that could be causing the issue.

I would be very grateful for any insight into how I could resolve this. I specifically wish to have a dual boot installation rather than running Ubuntu in a virtualized environment from within Windows.

1

2 Answers 2

0

I have encountered a similar issue when installing Ubuntu 12.10 alongside UEFI-enabled Windows 8. In my case, after disabling the UEFI booting and enabling the legacy boot, I created a Ubuntu live USB stick. Then after booting with the USB and installing the Boot-Repair with the command

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair && sudo apt-get update  && sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && (sudo boot-repair &)

I have successfully managed to make both of the OSs bootable.

0

I was getting the same thing and tried many many suggestions but only one of them actually worked. I have an Alienware M18X R2 laptop and the problem is the graphics driver. It has an NVidia card along with integrated Intel HD graphics chipset. When you get to the menu that has the "Try Ubuntu..." type in

vga=normal nomodeset

before the -- in the command line that appears below the menu. I found this suggestion in another thread here. You do not need to press F6 for Options and select nomodeset because you are doing it manually. There were other options people suggested but they did nothing. The key was the vga command, that was the fix. It is already in focus and I use the left arrow to move the cursor back before the -- and type in the vga command above without the quote. For me that works. I finally can see the next screen which is a Ubuntu progress screen. I use a CD to install so after that progress screen it does go black again for many seconds. At first I thought it wasn't really fixed. But be patient because if you have gotten to the progress screen after the menu it is working. Eventually it goes into a "Try" type of Ubuntu. From there you can select the desktop icon for installing Ubuntu.

This worked for me and hopefully others who have an Alienware laptop or similar problem with their laptop.

Hope that helps.

-Steve

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .