Cannot install ubuntu or Xubuntu. Screen hangs on splash screen. MSI Ghost Pro

Question

I am trying to install Linux onto my new MSI Ghost Pro GS60 6QE computer (I only found out today that MSI is notoriously unreliable with linux) and I am having a lot of trouble. For the whole day I tried to troubleshoot it but to no avail, my situation is this.

I am trying to dual boot my computer with linux using the YUMI pendrive. To get the computer to even recognise the bootable drive I disabled Secure Boot, Fast Boot, Intel Virtualization Technology and Intel Speedstep and also changed "Boot mode select" to Legacy mode.

When I actually run the Ubuntu installer it stalls on the splash screen, when I press escape it shows some process have been completed but seems to freeze on a random process (Eg. in one case it was "Starting Cups ..." and another time it was "Starting WPA"). This happened with all the distros I tried (Xubuntu 15.10, 15.4, 14.4 and Ubuntu 15.10 15.4).

As I am using Yumi and not in grub I don't have access to boot options using f6, all I could do was edit the executable and just replaced "splash screen ---" with "nomodeset ---" and it made no difference other then not loading the splash screen but still stalling on a random process.

My Specs are:

Processor: Intel Core i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz Motherboard: Microstar International MS-16H7

I hope someone has run into something similar and can help. If there is anyway to pinpoint the error could someone explain.

Thanks for taking the time, it's been a long day.

L.

Answer 1

Instead of YUMI, use Rufus. It's a lot faster and you'll be able to use UEFI.

When you get to the installer GRUB menu, highlight the "Try Ubuntu" option and press E. Add nouveau.modeset=0 to the end of the line beginning with linux. Also set the nomodeset flag. Press F10 to boot.

Install Ubuntu and reboot. When presented with GRUB, follow the above procedure to boot into Ubuntu. Once booted, install the proprietary NVIDIA drivers by searching for the Additional Drivers app. Use that to select a proprietary driver, then hit Apply and reboot. You shouldn't need the flags again.

Answer 2

I see you've found an answer; however, I want to point out some of the reasons you had problems, in the hopes of helping you and/or others avoid them in the future....

I am trying to install Linux onto my new...

Be aware that new hardware often requires the very newest OS version, or even not-yet-released software. With the release of Ubuntu 16.04 less than a week away, trying the latest pre-release version might have been worthwhile. (In the future, 16.10, 17.04, and later may be the pre-release versions worth trying, of course.)

I am trying to dual boot my computer with linux using the YUMI pendrive.

The last I checked, YUMI was 100% useless for creating EFI-bootable disks. The vast majority of new computers boot Windows in EFI mode, and when dual-booting, it's important to install Ubuntu in the same boot mode (BIOS or EFI) as the original OS. Thus, YUMI is 100% useless for most new installations. Don't use it. Use Rufus, Unetbootin, dd, or something else instead.

Also, be aware that there are sometimes machine-specific quirks and interactions with the tools used to prepare boot disks, and sometimes with particular settings in these tools. Thus, you may need to try two or three programs, or play with the settings, before you find something that works.

To get the computer to even recognise the bootable drive I disabled Secure Boot, Fast Boot, Intel Virtualization Technology and Intel Speedstep and also changed "Boot mode select" to Legacy mode.

Some of those changes (like disabling Fast Boot) are helpful. Disabling Secure Boot should not be necessary, and doing so increases your risk of contracting a pre-boot virus, so I recommend re-enabling Secure Boot. The biggest issue here was enabling BIOS/CSM/legacy support. This action enables booting in BIOS mode, which is the only way you'd be able to boot a YUMI-created disk, so it may seem like a helpful workaround; however, it greatly complicates the boot path and increases the odds of installing the OS in BIOS/CSM/legacy mode. In fact, with a YUMI-created disk, it more-or-less guarantees a cross-mode installation, which in turn will create new problems down the line -- problems that will be harder to overcome than the problem of booting the installer! Thus, enabling BIOS/CSM/legacy support, assuming you want to dual-boot with a pre-existing EFI-mode Windows, is almost certainly a big mistake. For more on this topic, see my Web page about it.

One more point: In addition to the EFI's "fast boot" option, there's an option in Windows called Fast Startup, and another called Hibernate. These MUST both be disabled if you're to safely dual-boot. See here and here for information on doing so. Failing to do this can lead to filesystem corruption and occasionally to damage to boot loaders, and thus to strange boot problems.