I have a Dell 9570 XPS laptop with latest BIOS (1.13.0) and I am trying to do a clean install of Ubuntu 19.10 from a flash drive. It is failing from two flash drives, one USB and one USB-C, with these steps.
- Reboot with flash drive inserted.
- Hit F12 and select flash drive as boot option (under UEFI).
- Grub screen loads, select any install / try option (with or without safe graphics)
Fails with:
error: cannot allocate kernel buffer.
error: you need to load the kernel first.
press any key to continue...
Pressing any key takes me back to the grub selection screen. I am able to load a grub command line.
I have tried all combinations of secure boot, fast boot, legacy rom mode / legacy BIOS boot I can think of. Nothing has an impact except booting the flash drive via LEGACY EXTERNAL DEVICE BOOT
, which loads the grub selection screen with nice graphics, and will successfully complete the installer.
However, I cannot then boot from the hard drive and even if I could, I want to use UEFI and secure boot.
Googling "cannot allocate kernel buffer" finds nothing that seems relevant.
Update:
I also tried installing off a 19.04 USB stick, which does work. I installed 19.04, then upgraded to 19.10. However, 19.10 then fails to boot with the same error.
I also tried creating the usb install from windows with Rufus, rather than with Startup Disk Creator from Ubuntu. Same issue.
It also seems to be now flashing briefly error: file /boot/ not found
, before it hits the grub installer option screen.. Actually, this seems to only occur when booting from USB-C flash drive, not from USB.
I also.. tried from a Dell XPS 7590 with BIOS 1.2.3 and the USB stick boots fine. This be specific to my hardware / BIOS config / BIOS version somehow. I guess I will wait until either a new 19.10 release comes out, or my BIOS gets a new version.
Update: 1.14.0 BIOS version made no difference.