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pop-os / pop

A project for managing all Pop!_OS sources
https://system76.com/pop
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Pop_OS 19.10 - Unable to boot from USB on XPS 7390 #730

Open JamieBradders opened 4 years ago

JamieBradders commented 4 years ago

Product: Dell XPS 7390 (UK Developer Edition) CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-10510U CPU @ 1.80GHz × 8 Distro: Pop_OS 19.10 Desktop: Gnome 3.34.1 Dell BIOS Version: 1.1.3

Issue/Bug Description: I'm currently using Ubuntu 19.10 on my XPS 7390. I've been trying to boot Pop_OS 19.10 from a USB drive so that I can test experience and replace Ubuntu. However, when booting from the USB drive the system closes the BIOS and seems to become stuck on the DELL home screen.

Steps to reproduce:

Expected behavior: Expect system to boot from USB and provide ability to try/install Pop

JamieBradders commented 4 years ago

PS apologies for vague hardware information. I'm pretty new to Linux so if you need more information then please just let me know what you need and where I need to go to get it then I'll gladly add to the issue :+1:

falsifian commented 4 years ago

I noticed a similar issue with NixOS: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/72936. Posting here in case it helps in one of these two ways:

JamieBradders commented 4 years ago

@falsifian thank you for the information, I'll take a look and let you know how it goes :pray:

JamieBradders commented 4 years ago

@falsifian would the command you posted in the issue work on Ubuntu 19.10? I've since replaced the version that came with the Dell.

falsifian commented 4 years ago

@jamie-endeavour probably. Note you may have to adjust it based on exactly how the PopOS boot image is set up. The general point is to find the EFI file on the USB stick that's supposed to boot grub (I think it was named something like bootx64.efi but I'm going from memory) and then use the grub-mkimage command to generate a new one in the same directory. In my case, I found bootx64.efi in the /EFI/boot directory of the partition, so I passed -p /EFI/boot. The -o fromub.efi argument is just giving the new EFI file a name; you can call it anything you want. The rest is a list of grub modules that should be included. Many of them probably can be omitted, e.g. btrfs unless the PopOS boot image uses the BtrFS filesystem.

One important point: you have to specifically tell your computer's bios to load the fromub.efi file you generated. I did this by going into bios settings, and (I think under "Boot Options"?) creating a new boot option. The BIOS gave me a little file browser where I could explore the USB stick's filesystem and locate the fromub.efi file I created earlier.

kathytu commented 4 years ago

I also get stuck on the Dell home screen with a single _ in the upper left hand corner. I'm new to Linux and having trouble getting this fix to work.

falsifian commented 4 years ago

@kathytu can you give more detail on what happens when you follow the instructions? E.g. are you able to run the grub-mkimage command? If so, does the command write any error messages to the terminal? Are you able to tell the laptop's BIOS to boot from that file?

Sorry, this probably isn't the best introduction to Linux... on the bright side, Ubuntu certainly seems to work on the laptop already. Also, I think the trouble you're having is caused by using cutting-edge hardware; eventually most distros will catch up (e.g. start using grub 2.04) so you can try again without having to use work-arounds.

hpost commented 4 years ago

Having the same issue. I'm able to boot into the grub image as outlined above but not sure what to do next (i.e. how to boot the installer from there).

ghost commented 4 years ago

@falsifian How were you able to edit the ISO? ISOs in a bootable USB (from etcher, etc) show as read-only file system. I've tried copying the ISO, creating a new efi file as described above but I have not been able to successfully rebuild a new ISO and make a bootable USB out of it (repackaged ISOs seem to fail in etcher or end up not being bootable when placed on the USB via dd). Any suggestions? I'm learning a ton through this process, but I'm not sure where to go from here.

falsifian commented 4 years ago

@rosstafarian the NixOS boot image included a FAT partition, so I just made the change directly there. Not sure what the best solution is for Pop OS. Maybe there is developer documentation somewhere about how to build a new boot image.

benpete22 commented 4 years ago

I also get stuck on the Dell home screen with a single _ in the upper left hand corner. I'm new to Linux and having trouble getting this fix to work.

I too am having this exact issue when trying to boot from an install flash drive. I was able to install Manjaro on my 7390, but when I try to boot the PopOS installer, I just get the _

ghost commented 4 years ago

@rosstafarian the NixOS boot image included a FAT partition, so I just made the change directly there. Not sure what the best solution is for Pop OS. Maybe there is developer documentation somewhere about how to build a new boot image.

Thank you. That little hint sparked the resolution for me and now I'm typing this on my new 7390 with Pop OS 19.10 installed!

The following worked for me:

jankowtf commented 4 years ago

I have the same issue. Total newbie to Linux and was so looking forward to trying out Pop!_OS on my XPS 13 7390 today.

If I had the Linux skills, I'd go for the fix proposed by @rosstafarian, but what's the chance that this is fixed in a new ISO by System76 soon?

trevorbryant commented 4 years ago

This issue exists in Pop_OS 19.10, 19.04, and 18.04 on the Dell XPS 7390.

Edit: the fix by @rosstafarian works successfully. The package grub-efi-amd64-bin may be needed (I had to install it).

kpeek commented 4 years ago

@rosstafarian's solution worked for me, but a couple things tripped me up:

1) Be sure to mount the FAT partition, as he calls out. It'll be the 2nd partition on the USB thumb drive, not the first. I tried to mount the first partition - which also has a /efi/boot/ folder - but kept getting a read-only file system error. Details!

2) Once at the GRUB command line, I had to use hd0 instead of cd0. You can type ls to see a list of options. Typing ls (hd0) showed that that was my PopOS thumb drive. YMMV.

I am now running Pop OS 19.10 on my Dell XPS 13 7390!

avfletch commented 4 years ago

Thanks to everyone in this thread for posting what helped them.

Here's a list of what got it working for me -

Boot settings -

@rosstafarian 's list mostly worked out of the box for me. One s to add -

sudo mkdir /media/$USERNAME/pop sudo mount /dev/sda2 /media/$USERNAME/pop

If your USB/TB disk is different to mine you can use fdisk -l to figure out what device it is

If you get to the point of trying to load Grub and it doesn't work, you'll get a log file on the FAT partition. This helped me find the need to disable Secure Boot.

Written on my XPS 7390 in Pop OS - Good luck!

alspringsteen commented 4 years ago

Thank you @rosstafarian, @kpeek, and @avfletch.

I was hoping to install Pop_OS 19.10 on a XPS developer edition shipped with Ubuntu 18.04, and I was having this same same issue while trying to boot from a USB (i.e. Dell logo plus cursor stuck at top left of screen).

I followed the instructions here and am now also typing this response on my XPS in Pop OS.

I am going to copy some of what others have written here just to explain the steps of what worked for me.

You should then see the Pop OS installer - whew!

Note: I did try (albeit only once) with the original commands from @rosstafarian: set prefix=(hd0)/boot/grub set root=(hd0) insmod linux insmod normal normal

but after the boot screen initializing the install was not successful. I have no idea why, but I doubt it was the commands, so feel free to try those first. If they don't work I believe you will need to recreate your bootable drive before trying again.

I did not come up with the configfile line - it came from fellow frustrated hopeful Pop OS users on reddit, specifically this link.

samnydahl commented 4 years ago

Thank you @rosstafarian, @kpeek, @avfletch and @alspringsteen ! Wanted to install PopOS on my new Dell XPS 9300, shipped with Windows 10, but had the same problems as as the rest of you (dell logo with cursor).

I followed the instructions from @alspringsteen and are now writing this from PopOS!

One thing though. I first tried to run grub-mkimage from a live-usb (ubuntu), but encountered problems with missing modules. Worked itself out with a full ubuntu-install.

trevorbryant commented 4 years ago

This issue has carried over to Pop!_OS 20.04.

The instructions to create and install from USB have also carried over.

julianlam commented 4 years ago

Odd, I did not experience any issues installing Pop!_OS on my 7390. I simply plugged the USB on the right side, hit F12, selected the usb drive, and the installer popped up without issue.

JamieBradders commented 4 years ago

I was just going to post an update to say that I've just installed Pop!_OS 20.04 on my Dell XPS 7390 (Developer Edition) and this is the same machine that I experienced problems with when installing 19.10.

I'm not too sure what to do with this issue as I have no intention of going back to 19.10 and I imagine a separate issue will be raised if people are experiencing the same problem on 20.04.

If someone from System76 could advise that would be great, but I don't mind if the issue gets closed now.

adamprocter commented 3 years ago

Occasionally my dell latitude 5400 will get stuck at the dell logo but not always. I am not sure why. I have turned off secure boot and like I said sometimes it doesn’t get stuck. Having power plugged in seems to help. But I am always worried about updates that restart the machine.

Does anyone have a specific set of steps that’s good to go as I see lots of options above and am a little lost as to whether I should wait for a pop update.

I am running pop 20.04 LTS