Ubuntu 12 and 14 installers do not load properly and/or do not complete installation on Lenovo ThinkCentre M900

Question

I'm trying to install any version of Ubuntu on a brand new, quad-core (Intel i7 vPro) Lenovo ThinkCentre M900, but the installer fails and does so in inconsistent ways.

Before I begin, I want to distinguish my issue from what is perhaps the most common issue: many people encounter the dilemma that they cannot get their Lenovo machine to boot from a bootable Ubuntu CD / DVD / USB because of the SecureBoot and UEFI features of the BIOS. That's not my issue. I've made the appropriate changes to the BIOS and the Lenovo machine can boot fine, at least initially, from the bootable media.

My problem is that the installer either never completely loads or loads but does not get past a certain point. The situations I have encountered:

• Ubuntu 14.04 (32-bit) off of a USB stick loads properly, recognizes the hard disk, and even gets to the "Who Are You?" stage where you enter your desired username, password, machine name etc.; however, when I click "Continue" on that screen it never gets to the sequence of splash screens where the installer says it is copying files and tells you how awesome Ubuntu is; the hard disk just spins and spins for hours; hitting Ctrl+Alt+F1 at this stage does not give me any usable data

• Ubuntu 12.04 (32-bit) off of a DVD begins loading the installer but doesn't load the GUI; instead, it exits to a terminal session; the messages in the terminal are inconsistent (I've done this 4 or 5 times); a couple of times, something to do with loading graphics is reported as FAIL, which makes sense given that it could not load the GUI, but I can't understand why this failure would occur (especially given that the GUI for the installer displays correctly off of the USB for 14.04 32-bit)

• Ubuntu 14.04 (64-bit) off of a DVD has the same issue as Ubuntu 12 (32-bit) directly above

Any ideas?

Answer 1

As per DougSmythies' comment, the Intel i7 vPro chip (a "skylake" processor) does not seem to respect prior versions of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit installed without a hiccup.

Post-installation, the OS runs mostly fine, but it does have some issues (it stalls on loading sometimes or cannot get past the login screen on some other tries). But having started the machine about 30 times since installation, these hangs seem to be random and infrequent. Still, they might point to some residual incompatibility between the OS and the chip.