spearhead2
May 23rd, 2019, 08:40 PM
After a fresh install of Ubuntu-Mate on a newly purchased laptop, I cannot login - everything freeze. There are some things I'd like to test in order to make it start - re-installation of graphic card drivers and using some boot options (mostly nomodeset and modprobe.blacklist). The problem is that no GRUB menu is showing up, so I am unable to either boot using a recovery mode to access the console or edit boot options with e button. Tried Space, Shift and Escape keys, and most of F1-12, but I was only able to enter BIOS. It goes as follow: I start the laptop it automatically picks default, normal boot option, goes into login screen and then freeze. I can't go to virtual terminal either. So my goal is to change GRUB options from the Live-CD, which I can boot normally.
Here's the disk in question:
$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 223.6 GiB, 240065183744 bytes, 468877312 sectors
Disk model: WDC WDS240G2G0B-
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 0C64BE04-FD58-4617-9EC1-D6EFE2F0A8B1
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System
/dev/sda2 1050624 468875263 467824640 223.1G Linux filesystem
Using Live-CD I can mount it just fine
ubuntu-mate@ubuntu-mate:~$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
ubuntu-mate@ubuntu-mate:~$ sudo mount /dev/sda2 /opt
ubuntu-mate@ubuntu-mate:~$ ls /mnt/
EFI boot
ubuntu-mate@ubuntu-mate:~$ ls /opt/
bin boot cdrom dev etc home initrd.img initrd.img.old lib lib32 lib64 libx32 lost+found media mnt opt proc root run sbin snap srv swapfile sys tmp usr var vmlinuz
Then I update /etc/default/grub as follows (adding GRUB_TIMEOUT, GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT and more boot options):
$ cat /opt/etc/default/grub
# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
# info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi=force nomodeset modprobe.blacklist=nouveau"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"
# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console
# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480
# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"
# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"
Finally I try to update GRUB with following
$ sudo grub-install --root-directory=/opt /dev/sda --force
Installing for i386-pc platform.
grub-install: warning: this GPT partition label contains no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be possible.
grub-install: warning: Embedding is not possible. GRUB can only be installed in this setup by using blocklists. However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged..
Installation finished. No error reported.
I've added --force flag to avoid error:
grub-install: error: will not proceed with blocklists.
It doesn't help - GRUB menu doesn't show, and I still cannot login. So my question is - what else I need to do to force GRUB menu to show from a LiveCD?
Here's the disk in question:
$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 223.6 GiB, 240065183744 bytes, 468877312 sectors
Disk model: WDC WDS240G2G0B-
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 0C64BE04-FD58-4617-9EC1-D6EFE2F0A8B1
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System
/dev/sda2 1050624 468875263 467824640 223.1G Linux filesystem
Using Live-CD I can mount it just fine
ubuntu-mate@ubuntu-mate:~$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
ubuntu-mate@ubuntu-mate:~$ sudo mount /dev/sda2 /opt
ubuntu-mate@ubuntu-mate:~$ ls /mnt/
EFI boot
ubuntu-mate@ubuntu-mate:~$ ls /opt/
bin boot cdrom dev etc home initrd.img initrd.img.old lib lib32 lib64 libx32 lost+found media mnt opt proc root run sbin snap srv swapfile sys tmp usr var vmlinuz
Then I update /etc/default/grub as follows (adding GRUB_TIMEOUT, GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT and more boot options):
$ cat /opt/etc/default/grub
# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
# info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi=force nomodeset modprobe.blacklist=nouveau"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"
# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console
# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480
# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"
# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"
Finally I try to update GRUB with following
$ sudo grub-install --root-directory=/opt /dev/sda --force
Installing for i386-pc platform.
grub-install: warning: this GPT partition label contains no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be possible.
grub-install: warning: Embedding is not possible. GRUB can only be installed in this setup by using blocklists. However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged..
Installation finished. No error reported.
I've added --force flag to avoid error:
grub-install: error: will not proceed with blocklists.
It doesn't help - GRUB menu doesn't show, and I still cannot login. So my question is - what else I need to do to force GRUB menu to show from a LiveCD?