On 7/09/14 11:59 PM, Douglas Ray wrote:
> Hi Wen Lin,
> did you try "vbeinfo" at the GRUB prompt?

... there's also
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-grub

> 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
>>
>>
>>
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