On Sep 7, 2014 11:58 PM, "Douglas Ray" <dougray@cpan.org> wrote:

Hi Wen Lin,
did you try "vbeinfo" at the GRUB prompt?

cheers
Douglas

On 6/09/14 5:14 PM, Wen Lin wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've been trying for weeks to install Ubuntu 14.04 onto my friend's new
> Toshiba laptop with the new UEFI secure boot built-in.  So far, no luck!
>   I can't even boot it up with the Ubuntu Live CD, regardless of
> SecureBoot enabled or disabled.
>
> First, some info and what I had done so far:
>
> Laptop:  Toshiba Satellite C50D-A
> (My friend bought from JB Hifi for $480 - not a high-end machine)
> CPU:  AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon HD Graphic 1.4 GHz  64-bit
> Memory:  4 GB
> HD:  500 GB
> Display adapter:  AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphic
> OS:  Windows 8  (I had since upgraded it to Win 8.1)
>
> I had:
> - Created a Win System Recovery image (using Win 8.1 built-in standard
> tool) to a USB flash disk.
> - Also used Win 8.1 built-in tool to shrink the C: drive to 255 GB,
> leaving me the other half of the disk for my Ubuntu install.
>
> I had no problem F2 at startup into the laptop's BIOS to change stuff like:
> - Boot sequence
> - Enable/Disable SecureBoot
> - Swap between UEFI Boot & CSM Boot (or Legacy mode)
>
> I had googled around quite a lot, and had tried several different
> approaches suggested, to no avail.
>
> Most of the forum sites/blogs suggest disable SecureBoot, some said no
> need - as newer Distro like Ubuntu 14.04 nowadays have no problem
> booting with SecureBoot on.
>
> I tried both approaches, but the Live CD first could only display a
> text-based version of GRUB 2 boot menu, with "Try Ubuntu" & "Install
> Ubuntu" among the menu options (rather than the Ubuntu's usual graphical
> one).  Then when I selected either the "Try" or "Install" options, it
> went into a total blank screen, and a moment later, everything stop - I
> tried waiting for it, sometimes hours, but it never come back!
>
> To try to see some messages, I used 'e' in the Grub menu to get into an
> editing mode:
>    set gfxpayload=keep
>    linux     /casper/vmlinuz.efi   file=/...  boot=casper quiet splash --
>    initrd    /casper/initrd.lz
>
> To edit the kernel boot up parameters - generally involved replacing the
> "quiet splash" with parameters like "nomodeset", "vga=radeon",
> "vga=792", etc - all to no avail.  But this time I could see some boot
> up messages splashing out, and then stopped at certain point:
> E.g.
> - [drm] Initialized radeon 1.34.0 ...
> - ahci 0000:00:11:0: flags: 64bit ncq ...
> - r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver ...
> - fb: conflicting fb hw usage radeondrmfb vs EFI VGA - removing generic
> driver
> - ACPI: Video Device [VGA] (multi-head: yes  rom: no   post: no)
>
> In general, it would seem the different boot parameters could only vary
> in at most several boot steps, but none of them managed to go all the
> way to successfully boot into Ubuntu Live.
>
> I had also tried other Distros: Ubuntu 13.10 64-bit & Linux Mint 15
> Cinnamon 64-bit - no different.  I even tried an Ubuntu 12.04 32-bit CD
> - but it boot straight into the Windows 8.1 instead.
>
> Another thing to point out:  I had also tried the CSM Boot option (in
> place of the default UEFI).  When in this mode, the whole "SecureBoot"
> feature disappeared, and I managed to boot into Ubuntu 14.04 Live CD,
> all the local programs, WiFi, Internet, the lots, all worked as normal!
>   I had not tried installing Ubuntu from there.  Just as well!  As
> attempt to boot back to Win 8.1 failed - the error message basically was
> saying that the Win 8.1 is not there anymore!  I could only boot back to
> Win 8.1 normally after I had reverted back to UEFI Boot mode.
>
> As you can see, no joy at all!   :-(
>
> So my question:  Is it a UEFI/SecureBoot problem, or an AMD Radeon
> display adapter problem?  If it's a display adapter problem, then why I
> could boot into Ubuntu when not in UEFI mode?  If it's a UEFI problem,
> then why couldn't I boot into Ubuntu with the SecureBoot disabled (said
> so by all the related forums & blogs I had visited so far - i.e.
> secureboot off - no problem)?
>
> I was pondering, if all else failed, to just install Ubuntu 14.04 into
> the partition I had freed up, while in CSM mode.  If this worked, then I
> could persuade my friend to just stick to Ubuntu, and occasionally if
> wanting to go to Wn 8.1, change back to UEFI before doing so.  While
> this may work (painfully), my friend might one day decide not to go back
> to Ubuntu, and my efforts would be wasted. Worst still, installing
> Ubuntu in CSM mode may render the Win 8.1 unbootable, and I don't think
> my friend want that!
>
> Any suggestions, comments, or experience in such dual boot adventure
> would be welcomed!
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Wen
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> luv-main mailing list
> luv-main@luv.asn.au
> http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-main
>
_______________________________________________
luv-main mailing list
luv-main@luv.asn.au
http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-main