Really unhappy with 20.04 mate installer

Support & Help Requests
1

Had Mate 16.04 on an ASUS fx705gm without issues. The WD NVMe drive that had Windows10 was not recognized but no matter, I could boot into Windows if I cared via the BIOS boot menu, did it all of a couple of times.

Got a new 2TB SSD and removed the 1TB SSD that Mate 16.04 was installed to, and swapped in the new Crutial 2TB SSD. Flashed a USB stick and booted the installer. Total disaster. Can't get the first base. Knowing the WD NVMe drive has issues with Linux I removed it so now its just the 2TB SSD and the bootable USB. Still nothing, I get the menu to "Try Ubuntu without installing" etc. It it sorta boots and ends up in a black screen locked up.

Never ever had a worse experience with any Linux install!

What the H is going on here!

2

I managed to get it installed. Permuting BIOS settings, removing the NVMe Windows drive, booting safe mode graphics, nothing worked. I tried thee different brands of USB3 sticks and verified the sha256 sig of my download. Wrote the image with two different versions of Balana Etcher and 16.04 "Disks" utility, no joy.

"Try without installing" always ended hung with a black screen or partially drawn desktop.

Any error messages flashed by too fast to write down, but something very early about initramfs not decompressing, and some wifi firmware feature having GWS but not GFS or some such.

I don't know what possessed me to try, or if it was menu fumble fingers, but booting directly to the installer worked!

I now apparently have a working 20.04 Mate system running. So far its different, but not too strange.

This laptop has some "funky" touch pad that 16.04 installer couldn't use so I needed a USB mouse, but 20.04 installer worked fine with it, and the "multi-touch" seems to work really well for scrolling Firefox etc. after installation. Correctly setup the Nvidia propertiary drivers and seems to have activated the WiFI (although I don't use it at home, so I've not connected to it)

I put the BIOS settings all back to where they were originally, and nothing changed. All this makes the abject failure of "Try Ubuntu without installing" even more infuriating and mysterious.

How many bad impressions will this issue make among potential new users who want to try the USB boot before installing to be confident it'll work?

I sure hope that what ever the issue is that its confined to a very small subset of laptops. My ASUS fx705gm is I'd call upper mid range, but 16.04 installer worked perfectly on it except for the multi-touch touchpad not being found, although it worked after 16.04 installation was done.

3

Hello wally333

You must have been very frustrated.

From what I know, I suspect the crucial ssd is the cause of some of your trouble. I've heard reports of crucial ssd systems being "difficult". It's all about the controller software on the ssd apparently.

The only way to narrow the source of your problems down, would be to try a Samsung ssd in exactly the same computer. I doubt that this option exists.

Otherwise try installing a few really different distros such as MX Linux and Manjaro, just to see if they install any better.

Of all my computers, only one was built by the manufacturer to run GNU/Linux. I expect distros to install on it without too much difficulty - as far as the others are concerned, every time an installation works I silently give thanks to all the programmers who helped to bring GNU/Linux so far, that that is even possible. Let's hope that 22.04 will install more easily for you. Well done. :slightly_smiling_face:

4

I haven't updated yet as the update-manager still doesn't offer me the upgrade but know Iḿ getting concerned as my SSD is Crucial. I might swap it for a Seagate and go for a fresh install instead.

5

If the problem is the brand of SSD drive, how do you explain that it works fine once I got it installed using the direct installer? I think I forgot to mention that it also needed "install with safe graphics".

At the very least it means the drivers on the ISO are not the ones that end up being installed.

If a drive that is being used with an older version is now "flakey" with the new version, seems to me that this defines a "regression" in the new version.

It now occurs to me that my laptop has both NVidia and Intel graphics chips and both are active, this is "feature" for my choice of this laptop so I can use the Intel OpenVINO GPU AI and CUDA code. Later today I'll disable the Intel graphics in the BIOS (assuming I can) and see if I can boot the "try without installing" option.

Edit, there appears to be no option to disable the Intel or NVidia graphics in the BIOS. This is the worst BIOS I've yet encountered -- all useless graphics and an "Advanced Mode" with very few options, mostly enable/disable for things that clearly need to be enabled for the computer to be worth a crap.

6

Hello mazinger

The only RAM I have bought has been Crucial (both times, years apart), and it worked exactly as it should.

I imagine that if you can install onto your Crucial ssd without problems your particular ssd is probably good.

When I have changed to Samsung ssd drives it has always been because I was removing an hdd and replacing it with an ssd. I chose Samsung because of reports that they generally work well with GNU/Linux.

7

Hello wally333

I cannot explain what is happening with your computer - only give ideas - which you may find more, or less, useful.

8

Thanks!

I swapped SSDs and did a clean installation of 20.04. Itś running smoothly and very fast