Installing Ubuntu despite obstinate BIOS

[da na]

Any ideas of how the heck I can install Ubuntu 22.04 on my laptop? Sick of Windows 11 and want a better OS, since all I use that laptop for is web browsing.

Only issue being, it doesn't like to boot from SD cards, USB sticks, USB DVD, USB floppy, you name it. As in, the option isn't available as a boot option in the BIOS.

I could take the NVME out, pop it in another board, install Ubuntu to it, then move it back to this laptop but the only NVME board I have has wildly different hardware so that might introduce some issues. Although I've done similar things with Ubuntu and SATA drives before so I don't see why NVMEs wouldn't be just as compatible.

Any other ideas before I do that? Any way to launch the installer from Windows? 

Laptop specs: Asus Vivobook 14, Ryzen 5 3500u, Vega 8, 6gb DDR4, Crucial NVME 265gb

Other NVME board specs: X99 chipset, Xeon E5-2690, GTX 980, 32gb DDR3, and I'd temporarily replace that installed NVME with the laptop one

Any help would be appreciated.

[C2dan88]

Disable fast boot and  secure boot in the bios? 

 

Where and how have you created the ubuntu installation media?

[JogerJ]

Might be some UEFI option under USB controllers. Enable legacy USB or something similar and you should see your boot medium in boot menu.

[da na]

Just now, C2dan88 said:

Disable fast boot and  secure boot in the bios? 

 

Where and how have you created the ubuntu installation media?

I've disabled both fast and secure boot, should have said that in the original post.

The BIOS also has this convoluted "create a new boot option" thing but it doesn't actually work - you can just select from the list of all 1 boot options (the NVME).

Created it from an .iso downloaded this morning, flashed with BalenaEtcher to a USB flash drive and SD card. Also tried my 21.10 DVD in a USB drive (unfortunately no internal).

[da na]

Just now, JogerJ said:

Might be some UEFI option under USB controllers. Enable legacy USB or something similar and you should see your boot medium in boot menu.

unfortunately the only USB options are to turn the ports on or off. Which doesn't help in the slightest lol

[JogerJ]

Try with Rufus, it's well tested and has compatibility options I don't think balena has

[da na]

41 minutes ago, JogerJ said:

Try with Rufus, it's well tested and has compatibility options I don't think balena has

It's a BIOS boot issue, not an Etcher issue but thanks - I've used the same software for many other computers that have worked fine

[FUIT1985]

1 hour ago, Mel0nMan said:

Any ideas of how the heck I can install Ubuntu 22.04 on my laptop? Sick of Windows 11 and want a better OS, since all I use that laptop for is web browsing.

Only issue being, it doesn't like to boot from SD cards, USB sticks, USB DVD, USB floppy, you name it. As in, the option isn't available as a boot option in the BIOS.

I could take the NVME out, pop it in another board, install Ubuntu to it, then move it back to this laptop but the only NVME board I have has wildly different hardware so that might introduce some issues. Although I've done similar things with Ubuntu and SATA drives before so I don't see why NVMEs wouldn't be just as compatible.

Any other ideas before I do that? Any way to launch the installer from Windows? 

Laptop specs: Asus Vivobook 14, Ryzen 5 3500u, Vega 8, 6gb DDR4, Crucial NVME 265gb

Other NVME board specs: X99 chipset, Xeon E5-2690, GTX 980, 32gb DDR3, and I'd temporarily replace that installed NVME with the laptop one

Any help would be appreciated.

You should check the compatibility of the processor (Xeon E5-2690) with the motherboard chipset (X99). From the information on the official Intel website, there is no compatibility between them.

 

Intel® X99 Chipset - Compatible Products

 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/81761/intel-x99-chipset/compatible.html

 

However you should:

read an installation guide;

try another Linux distribution (e.g. Debian multi-arch).

https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/multi-arch/iso-cd/.

[da na]

12 minutes ago, FUIT1985 said:

You should check the compatibility of the processor (Xeon E5-2690) with the motherboard chipset (X99). From the information on the official Intel website, there is no compatibility between them.

 

Intel® X99 Chipset - Compatible Products

 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/81761/intel-x99-chipset/compatible.html

 

However you should:

read an installation guide;

try another Linux distribution (e.g. Debian multi-arch).

https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/multi-arch/iso-cd/.

It's one of those weird Chinese boards I bought as a testbench. It works fine, the board. 

It's not a Linux issue. It is a booting from USB issue.

[LloydLynx]

Try removing the NVME SSD and seeing if the laptop boots to the USB itself or just No Device errors.

 

Here are a couple things people have suggested. The "I enabled mass storage in bios." suggestion particularly sticks out to me as something to look into. Though I don't really know what it means exactly.

 

So if what I read is correct, the USB is not showing up in this list?

[da na]

1 minute ago, LloydLynx said:

Try removing the NVME SSD and seeing if the laptop boots to the USB itself or just No Device errors.

 

Here are a couple things people have suggested. The "I enabled mass storage in bios." suggestion particularly sticks out to me as something to look into. Though I don't really know what it means exactly.

 

So if what I read is correct, the USB is not showing up in this list?

Correct - the USB does not show in that list. Nothing but the NVME does.

My BIOS looks different, my older Asus laptop had that exact one though. Mine is the regular standard blue/grey Phoenix BIOS. Same one used on thin clients.

[LloydLynx]

Just now, Mel0nMan said:

Mine is the regular standard blue/grey Phoenix BIOS. Same one used on thin clients.

According to what I can figure, for that laptop that means it's running in Legacy boot mode. But that's confusing as you say it's running Windows 11. Could you check if it's running in Legacy or EFI?

 

So it looks like this? But it says American Megatrends, so maybe my source isn't reliable.

[da na]

24 minutes ago, LloydLynx said:

According to what I can figure, for that laptop that means it's running in Legacy boot mode. But that's confusing as you say it's running Windows 11. Could you check if it's running in Legacy or EFI?

 

So it looks like this? But it says American Megatrends, so maybe my source isn't reliable.

Yes. Like that.

Running in EFI.

[Nayr438]

17 hours ago, JogerJ said:

Try with Rufus, it's well tested and has compatibility options I don't think balena has

Images should be written with DD, this is the only supported method of making a USB Image.

BalenaEtcher does this, Rufus will as well if you manually select it. Using the other options in Rufus is considered unsupported.

 

17 hours ago, C2dan88 said:

Disable fast boot and  secure boot in the bios?

Ubuntu Supports Secure Boot with a Microsoft Signed Boot Shim.

 

16 hours ago, FUIT1985 said:

You should check the compatibility of the processor (Xeon E5-2690) with the motherboard chipset (X99). From the information on the official Intel website, there is no compatibility between them.

There were quite a few X99 boards that supported that generation of xeon processors with limited functionality.

If it was a compatibility issue, this would probably be the least of concern.

 

17 hours ago, Mel0nMan said:

I could take the NVME out, pop it in another board, install Ubuntu to it, then move it back to this laptop but the only NVME board I have has wildly different hardware so that might introduce some issues.

Most drivers are built into the kernel and for everything else, most distros use a initramfs to load additional modules at boot for compatibility reasons. None of them get removed after install, unless you manually do it. In other words, it shouldn't matter what hardware it was installed and then moved to.

 

What I would be more concerned about is your Laptops nonstandard UEFI Implementation, chances are if you can't boot a live media you wont be able to boot a installed instance. The boot-loader setup would likely be near identical.

 

17 hours ago, Mel0nMan said:

The BIOS also has this convoluted "create a new boot option" thing but it doesn't actually work - you can just select from the list of all 1 boot options

Unless it will let you select a EFI file entry from a connected filesystem, you will probably have to fall back to Legacy/BIOS. If you can't do either, then your probably out of options.

As a last resort you could try Fedora (not sure what they do, but I have had better luck with this on various non-standard implementations) or PopOS! ( Uses a different boot-loader, I believe systemd-boot).

[FUIT1985]

5 hours ago, Nayr438 said:

Images should be written with DD, this is the only supported method of making a USB Image.

BalenaEtcher does this, Rufus will as well if you manually select it. Using the other options in Rufus is considered unsupported.

 

Ubuntu Supports Secure Boot with a Microsoft Signed Boot Shim.

 

There were quite a few X99 boards that supported that generation of xeon processors with limited functionality.

If it was a compatibility issue, this would probably be the least of concern.

 

Most drivers are built into the kernel and for everything else, most distros use a initramfs to load additional modules at boot for compatibility reasons. None of them get removed after install, unless you manually do it. In other words, it shouldn't matter what hardware it was installed and then moved to.

 

What I would be more concerned about is your Laptops nonstandard UEFI Implementation, chances are if you can't boot a live media you wont be able to boot a installed instance. The boot-loader setup would likely be near identical.

 

Unless it will let you select a EFI file entry from a connected filesystem, you will probably have to fall back to Legacy/MBR. If you can't do either, then your probably out of options.

As a last resort you could try Fedora (not sure what they do, but I have had better luck with this on various non-standard implementations) or PopOS! ( Uses a different boot-loader, I believe systemd-boot).

 

11 hours ago, Mel0nMan said:

Any ideas of how the heck I can install Ubuntu 22.04 on my laptop? Sick of Windows 11 and want a better OS, since all I use that laptop for is web browsing.

Only issue being, it doesn't like to boot from SD cards, USB sticks, USB DVD, USB floppy, you name it. As in, the option isn't available as a boot option in the BIOS.

I could take the NVME out, pop it in another board, install Ubuntu to it, then move it back to this laptop but the only NVME board I have has wildly different hardware so that might introduce some issues. Although I've done similar things with Ubuntu and SATA drives before so I don't see why NVMEs wouldn't be just as compatible.

Any other ideas before I do that? Any way to launch the installer from Windows? 

Laptop specs: Asus Vivobook 14, Ryzen 5 3500u, Vega 8, 6gb DDR4, Crucial NVME 265gb

Other NVME board specs: X99 chipset, Xeon E5-2690, GTX 980, 32gb DDR3, and I'd temporarily replace that installed NVME with the laptop one

Any help would be appreciated.