Dual boot corruption

[win-refugee]

Hello community. Help!

I have a brand new HP Envy laptop with Win11 Pro pre-installed, which means BitLocker encrypted drive on the 1 TB SSD. After the ESP partition, and the windows recovery partition, the main OS partition was about 850 GB. Its has HP UEFI firmware, with FastBoot OFF and Secure Boot ON. Because of BitLocker, i used Windows disc management to shrink the main partition to 128 GB, leaving the rest for the Linux installation to partition = 128 GB for linux OS & apps; the rest for /home. I intend to share the /home partition between Windows and Linux.

I installed Xubuntu_24.04. I was successfully able to secure boot into either Windows or Xubuntu, and share the BitLocker protected Windows files with Linux (Thunar). Then i tried out a LiveUSB version of Lubuntu_24.04. PowerDown on that trial hung. I eventually recovered by holding down the laptop power button (long press). After that Windows boot was OK, but Xubuntu would not boot properly.

Selecting Xubuntu from the Grub 2.12 menu results in a blank screen which hangs forever (or at least 10 minutes).
Selecting Xubuntu (advanced) from the Grub 2.12 menu, and then the "generic" option gives a little more info. It results in log screen, which prints 2 lines and then hangs.
loading Linux 6.8.0-36-generic ....
loading inital ramdisk ....

Selecting Xubuntu (advanced) from the Grub 2.12 menu, and then the "recovery" brings up another options menu. I tried a few, and discovered that just selecting the 'resume' option allows the boot to complete.

So i'm trying to debug why a clean boot is no longer achievable.
I did an update of packages. No joy.
I read through /var/log/boot.log. I poured over the output of 'sudo journalctl'. Nothing i could spot. I did see a notice that the boot sector and its backup differ. The log claims this was repaired.

Anyone have a suggestion ?

[tea for one]

I installed Xubuntu_24.04. I was successfully able to secure boot into either Windows or Xubuntu, and share the BitLocker protected Windows files with Linux (Thunar). Then i tried out a LiveUSB version of Lubuntu_24.04. PowerDown on that trial hung. I eventually recovered by holding down the laptop power button (long press). After that Windows boot was OK, but Xubuntu would not boot properly.

A hard shutdown can, sometimes, damage mounted filesystems.
Boot into a live "Try Ubuntu" session and check the filesystems with fsck.
I suspect that your ESP was still mounted when you used the power button.

[Impavidus]

A hard shutdown can, sometimes, damage mounted filesystems.
Boot into a live "Try Ubuntu" session and check the filesystems with fsck.
I suspect that your ESP was still mounted when you used the power button.

It looks like that. In particular, as

I tried a few, and discovered that just selecting the 'resume' option allows the boot to complete.

it looks like this resulted in a damaged graphics driver. Reinstalling kernels and drivers may help.

Also,

... leaving the rest for the Linux installation to partition = 128 GB for linux OS & apps; the rest for /home. I intend to share the /home partition between Windows and Linux.

128GB for root is some overkill. Ubuntu wants more than it used to, in particular with all hose snaps (which I avoid), but by system is still happy with 32GB root, if which I only use half. /home must use a native Linux filesystem, typically ext4 these days, and Windows cannot access that. You may be able to get access from Windows using a third-party driver, but I wouldn't put too much confidence in that. And I expect Windows wants something similar to a home directory on an ntfs partition. You can however use a shared data partition. Just make it ntfs and don't expect Linux permissions to work there. Some people use it to store their web browser profile, email, documents.

[grahammechanical]

Selecting Xubuntu from the Grub 2.12 menu results in a blank screen which hangs forever (or at least 10 minutes).
Selecting Xubuntu (advanced) from the Grub 2.12 menu, and then the "generic" option gives a little more info. It results in log screen, which prints 2 lines and then hangs.
loading Linux 6.8.0-36-generic ....
loading inital ramdisk ....

Selecting Xubuntu (advanced) from the Grub 2.12 menu, and then the "recovery" brings up another options menu. I tried a few, and discovered that just selecting the 'resume' option allows the boot to complete.

As fas as I understand things, loading Xubuntu using Advanced Options>Recovery>Resume will load a kernel to the desktop using a open source video driver instead of a proprietary video driver that was installed. I know of no other difference. Here is something you can try when at the recovery menu:

Select Network - that should establish an internet connection. Then select Root - That will get you a command line where you can run commands, such as

apt update
apt upgrade
dpkg

The command dpkg will fix broken packages. To get back to the recovery menu - type exit.

Then select resume and then try rebooting to load with the proprietary video driver.

Regards

[win-refugee]

Thanks to all who responded.
I tried fsck, both from the boot-advanced-recovery menu, and from a LiveUSB. It reported just files and blocks/clusters. No corruption.
I tried apt update and upgrade. Some out-of-date files, but made no difference to the problem.
dpkq requires a package name. i didn't know what package is the problem. I used the package manager to search for 'video driver' packages and found a few. Did a package re-install on them. No impact.

So, in the end i bit the bullet and reinstalled Xubuntu from the LiveUSB. In fact i did this several times, simplifying as debug was still unsuccessful. I had some other problems that i thought were un-related. But this process made suspect they are related.

In the end, i have Xubuntu installed on a single partition. The last dialog in the installation has a "Restart" button. Nothing about the USB stick. So i hit that button and waited. No indication of progress, and no message about removing the USB stick. Laptop power still on. So after about 5 minutes, i pulled out the stick and hit ENTER. The first boot into the new installation then executed.

I entered by ADmin password at the login prompt, and was presented with a desktop. i opened a terminal and executed the following 3 lines.
> sudo apt update
> sudo apt upgrade
> sudo apt update
The first indicated 52 packages. The second upgraded those packages. And the 3rd indicated 0 packages.

I then powered down (not restart). After a minute, i powered on again.
This boot returned me to the condition i originally reported. Boot Xubuntu hangs. Boot Xubuntu advanced generic hangs in initRam. Boot Xubuntu advanced recovery resume gets me to the login screen. But when i enter my admin password pauses for a few seconds, then blanks the screen, then presents me with the same dialog again. Entering the password for a second time gets me in.
Shortly thereafter, usually as i touch the panel to configure it, an error dialog pops up "Xubuntu encountered an internal error". As i ask for details (and a few more password dialogs) it appears to relate to xfce-panel.

The system is functional, just a bit inconvenient - boot choice path, double authentication. But clearly it is not fully healthy.
Any ideas ?

[tea for one]

The system is functional, just a bit inconvenient - boot choice path, double authentication. But clearly it is not fully healthy.
Any ideas ?

Not booting cleanly must be frustrating...........

How about playing around with Windows 11 and/or UEFI settings?

Windows Settings
Disable Bitlocker
Disable Fast Start Up i.e. Windows is not hibernating

UEFI Settings (if present)
Disable Secure Boot
Disable Fast Boot
Disable Legacy mode
Disable the following (if present):-
TPM (Trusted Platform Module)
PTT (Platform Trust Technology)
FTPM (Firmware Trusted Platform Module)
TPT (Trust Platform Technology)
Lock UEFI BIOS Settings
Boot Order Lock

Enable Microsoft 3rd Party UEFI CA

Previous forum posts have indicated that toggling on/off any and all of the above have improved the boot process.
Unfortunately, it's a matter of trial and error because each vendor has a unique perspective for UEFI settings.

[win-refugee]

Not booting cleanly must be frustrating...........

How about playing around with Windows 11 and/or UEFI settings?

Windows Settings
Disable Bitlocker
Disable Fast Start Up i.e. Windows is not hibernating

UEFI Settings (if present)
......
Previous forum posts have indicated that toggling on/off any and all of the above have improved the boot process.
Unfortunately, it's a matter of trial and error because each vendor has a unique perspective for UEFI settings.

Bit Locker should not be an issue. The ESP partition wherein UEFI resides (and is shared between Linux and Windows) is not encrypted.
The Windows partition is not used by Linux - but i am able to mount and access it from the Thunar File Manager after entering its recovery key.

Fast Boot is already OFF.

I am not willing to operate with TPM OFF or Secure Boot OFF.
Perhaps as a debugging experiment, but not as an operational solution.
Given the threats today, just not something i'm willing to sacrifice.

After several more experiments, it seems the "internal errors" may be because i tried to save my panel configurations and restore them in the
new installation. If i just manually re-perform all these panel configurations changes, those internal errors seem to go away.

I don't know where to go next. Live with the inconvenience, vs experiment with other distros (probably with other desktops).

Linux Mint XFCE 21.3 worked fine, except it could not find my wifi. Likely version 22.beta will solve that problem, but will it just return me to these same Ubuntu 24.04 issues ?
Lubuntu worked great from the LiveUSB (but so did XUbuntu). But its the same Ubuntu base so why would it be different ?
MX Linux 23.3, with its AntiX boot process also had secure boot issues, and graphics driver problems.
Maybe Debian ?

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts.

[win-refugee]

Just an update.
Ubuntu published a security update today (0-0-38). I updated, which ended with a message to restart the machine. i did.
Problems gone! The default Xubuntu GRUB selection now boots cleanly to a login screen. I sign in with my password, without the dialog repeating.
Hurray! A very nice experience.

A few hours later, i used the LightDM Greeter settings to change the login background. When i restarted, both problems re-appeared.
It was great for a while.

My guess (thats all it is) is that some of the configuration files (not just code files) are getting caught up in the signature calculations. So as soon as i make a config change, the signature no longer matches on boot. Somehow the "recovery" path is less strict, and allows me in despite the signature mismatch. Guess i'll wait until the next security patch and try again.

[TheFu]

Might be helpful if you looked up the boot process for Linux to understand the different stages and why anything before actually logging in is different from everything after.

Also, there is no admin account. You've simplified what is happening incorrectly and used an incorrect term. By default the account made during installation is part of the sudo group. Being a member of that normal, unix, group conveys the ability to access some files, like sudo. Other users cannot. If you like, you can always login as a user who isn't in the sudo group, say, second-user. then use su - {first-user} to change to the userid in the sudo group for administrative access, if you like.


What is 0-0-38? Don't look like a date to me.

Dualbooting is a mess. I stopped doing that about 15 yrs ago when virtualization became excellent to allow running the multiple OSes on the same hardware concurrently. Using VMs is much more convenient too. Plus, multiple OSes aren't fighting over control of the boot process or storage encryption.

[win-refugee]

Might be helpful if you looked up the boot process for Linux to understand the different stages and why anything before actually logging in is different from everything after.

Do you have some links to suggest where i might read about that ?

Ubuntu-generic-0-0-38 was the security update? What i had installed was Ubuntu-generic-0-0-36.

Also, there is no admin account. You've simplified what is happening incorrectly and used an incorrect term. By default the account made during installation is part of the sudo group. Being a member of that normal, unix, group conveys the ability to access some files, like sudo. Other users cannot. If you like, you can always login as a user who isn't in the sudo group, say, second-user. then use su - {first-user} to change to the userid in the sudo group for administrative access, if you like.

I understand about Linux users and groups, and permissions. I'm not crazy about how Ubuntu has done it. There is no 'root' user login nor home directory, but in essence 'root' is the PRIMARY user. Files are owned by 'root' and there is a 'root' group with just that user. I defined an Administration user as part of the install process. Ubuntu docs say this first defined user has administration privileges. That user belongs to the 'admin' group. Sure enough, login as Admin and do 'sudo' and you can access many things owned by 'root'. Logged in as this admin user, i created my user account. It has its own username and password, its own /home/userA directory. It belongs to the predefined 'users' group. It can sudo to admin privileges.

So what did i simplify incorrectly, and what term was incorrect ?