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I'm completely new to linux so I'm trying to try (without installing) Ubuntu 14.04 on my Toshiba Satellite with Windows 10 (originally Windows 8) computer. This is my first time trying to mess around with operating systems like this, and honestly I don't know much about operating systems at all. I chose Ubuntu 14.04 because I read that it was the easiest/most common for beginners, but if I should give up and start somewhere even more basic just stop me here.

Anyways I downloaded the Ubuntu 14.04 ISO file and burned it to a DVD, which seemed to go well, the files on the DVD look like they're supposed to at least. However I'm having trouble when it actually comes to booting from the DVD. I've turned off fast boot, but when I try to boot my computer from the DVD it first takes me to the Grub(?) menu instead of the installation menu I saw in the tutorials, and then when I select try without installing, it just gives me the message "[ 0.0504531] Ignoring GBRT: Invalid Status 0 (Expected 1)", and then doesn't do anything. At that point I have to force shut down my computer. Did that mess up my DVD? It does this whether secure reboot is enabled or disabled. I'm totally stuck. I've been reading about UEFI vs. BIOS but I don't understand it and can't really figure out how this is relevant to my situation, or if that's what's causing my problem. Does anybody have any insight about this? Like I said I just want to try it right now I'm not looking to install yet!

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  • What's your firmware/BIOS version? That generation Satellite might have had a problem in early releases. What's your video hardware, e.g. Nvidia? Then you might need special kernel parameters like nomodeset. Did you hashcheck the downloaded ISO?
    – ubfan1
    Mar 14, 2016 at 3:46
  • Um, I guess my BIOS version is Insyde Corp 6.20, and my video hardware is AMD Radeon. Do I need parameters for these versions? And no, I didn't, I'll try that.
    – Tali AC
    Mar 14, 2016 at 5:18

3 Answers 3

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I think its not about UEFI or other kind of booting mechanism. The problem you facing is most probably is that disc burning has not taken place correctly. The grub menu appears usually when Ubuntu boot loader can't find necessary files to boot. I would say if you can manage then arrange a pen drive and use Universal USB Installer to make this pendrive bootable with Ubuntu and give it a shot.

Or you can try burning another DVD/CD.

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  • Ok, thank you! I have a USB back at school but I was trying to do this while home for the weekend - I'll just wait and try again later.
    – Tali AC
    Mar 14, 2016 at 2:17
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Download the appropriate ISO (32 bit, or 64 bit), and hashcheck it to ensure no errors occurred in the download. Regardless of which mirror/torrent you use to get the ISO, get the hashes from the main Ubuntu site. If you are really concerned about altered ISOs, additionally use the GPG signature check on the hashes.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM
GPG signature check:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VerifyIsoHowto

After creating the install media, you can run the media-check if offered from the grub menu to ensure the media has no problems. Starting with good, validated media will eliminate a lot of weird, non-repeatable errors.

Your Satellite C855 with Windows 8 was one of the early UEFI machines, and had some problems with the secure boot keys. Since the machine came with Windows 8, it is running in UEFI mode, so Ubuntu should be installed in UEFI mode too. If you want to run with secure-boot enabled, you should ensure you BIOS is current enough to allow that. If you disable secure-boot, maybe you don't need to update the BIOS. Certainly that is easy to try, and avoids the risk of flashing the BIOS. Addionally, there is a long-standing bug in grub which prevents it from booting Windows with secure boot enabled (#1091464), so disabling secure-boot will allow grub to boot Windows (instead of having to use the EFI boot menu to boot Windows when you want it).

Just to confuse things, there are two versions, the BIOS version and the firmware version. If your BIOS version is 6.50 or earlier, it should be updated for running with secure-boot. The firmware version of 6.10, with BIOS version 6.60 is a working pair.

You have problems after the grub menu, that's not a UEFI/boot problem, it's probably video. Normally, after an install, you will install any proprietary video drivers, but for the initial boot, you might need an additional kernel parameter like "nomodeset".

Ignore the GBRT... warning. Shutting down should not harm the DVD.

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You can try using rufus to burn the iso image onto a USB flash drive then use it to boot has worked for me multiple times.

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