Ok I nearly lost hope, since not being able to figure it out.

PLEASE. SEND. HELP.

_ First: this might gonna get a long one, but I‘m desperately looking for help!
Second: I‘m a total newb on Linux, so I have really limited Linux know-how.

Specs:
Asus ROG Strix G15DS-R7700X088W
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
2x 1TB SSDs; 1x M2 NVME with W11 running, 1x SATA

Goal:
Running Dual Boot with W11 on the first, M2 SSD (already running fine) and Linux (Nobara preferred) on the second, SATA SSD

Distros I tried:
Nobara 39
Fedora 39
Fedora 38
Ubuntu 22.04
Pop!_OS

Problem I run into:
I can‘t boot even from the LiveUSB without the „acpi=off“ option. If I do, I get just a black Screen (with Backlight still on) or, if I get into the Grub options first, there‘s only „booting command list“ visible but nothing else happens (even with „quiet“ disabled, no info on the Screen at all).
One thing I noticed, since my Keyboard, Mouse and Mousemat (Razerfly) have lighting, when I try to boot without the acpi=off, they go dark. And stay dark. With acpi=off the keyboard alone goes dark but then lights up again after 2-3 seconds.
If I run it with acpi=off, I can boot and install, but I then have to boot every time with acpi=off. This leads to the graphics driver not being recognized by the OS and running always in 1024x768 „software rendering“ resolution (even with proper drivers installed and enabled and nouveau on blacklist). So just let „acpi=off“ enabled isn‘t an option.

I did, after researching for several hours, try with various other options (nomodeset, acpi=ht, pci=biosirq, noapic, nolapic, and so on, tried a ton of those) but nothing did the trick - always black screen of death without acpi=off.

I did update my BIOS to the latest Version (306), did try every possibilty of options enabled/disabled (Fast Boot, Secure Boot, IOMMU, acpi settings in BIOS, secondary on-board Graphics,…) with no change.

Since I ran out of options (in relation to my google and reddit search skills), knowledge (total newb on Linux) and possibility to ask friends (that know more about linux than me), I‘m desperate enough to ask for help.

You are my last hope, before giving up on Linux with my PC.

If someone has an idea I could try or even a solution, I‘d be endlessly thankful!

If I missed some info or something is needed, don‘t hesitate to as for specific details._

#linuxquestions

  • @[email protected]
    1•9 months ago

    You are my last hope, before giving up on Linux with my PC.

    Don’t worry by putting too much pressure on you mate.
    You’ve made a bad bet with both Nvidia and Asus hardware. Both are known to make problems sadly. But we can fix it, I’m sure of that!

    I’ve had that problem too a long time ago.
    I think it might be because of the USB-stick.

    • What tool did you use to flash it? Try the Fedora Media Writer, Ventoy, Rufus, Etcher, or any other tool you tried before
    • Use another USB-stick
    • And another port
    • Eject the stick safely, don’t just pull it out
    • Deactivate the CSM in the BIOS. It will make compatibility with many other OSs impossible or hard.
    • Secure boot should be fine on most popular distros
    • Reset the BIOS settings (but don’t forget the CSM!)

    Regarding my first paragraph, I recommend the -nvidia and/ or -asus images from universal-blue.org. Depending on if you want to use the PC for just gaming, or general use, you can give Bazzite a shot. Otherwise, the Silverblue and Kinoite main images are great too.
    They have all drivers baked in if you select the right image.

    Oh, and you could consider getting a second NVMe for Linux too. The performance will then be even better!

    If the tips from above don’t work, tell my the results. Then we will troubleshoot more. Remember, usually Linux is just plug and play, and doesn’t require any fiddling. For most PCs, it’s just “plug your stick in, select next next, wait 5 minutes, done”.

    • VarenOP
      1•9 months ago

      @Guenther_Amanita
      Thanks mate, appreciate your words!

      What tool did you use to flash it? Try the Fedora Media Writer, Ventoy, Rufus, Etcher, or any other tool you tried before

      Did try the Fedora Media Writer, Ventoy and Rufus up until now

      Use another USB-stick

      tried with 2 different already to exclude and issue with the stick

      And another port

      did already, swapped between USB-A and USB-C and even USB2 and USB3.1 Ports, unfortunately I have always the same issue, no matter the port.

      Eject the stick safely, don’t just pull it out

      always do

      Deactivate the CSM in the BIOS. It will make compatibility with many other OSs impossible or hard.

      already saw posts/comments about it while googling, but wasn’t able to find any option in my BIOS regarding CSM - but will go over it again to make sure I haven’t missed it

      Secure boot should be fine on most popular distros

      ok, good to know…

      Reset the BIOS settings (but don’t forget the CSM!)

      did this right just before answering (except the CSM part, see my answer above), didn’t change anything

      Regarding my first paragraph, I recommend the -nvidia and/ or -asus images from universal-blue.org

      will read through the docs, since I know very little about Linux yet, I’m not that familiar… just thought I’d download the ISO from the projects page and give it a go… will report back for sure, thanks!

      Oh, and you could consider getting a second NVMe for Linux too. The performance will then be even better!

      will def. consider it, if I get it running with proper driver and everything :D

      For most PCs, it’s just “plug your stick in, select next next, wait 5 minutes, done”.

      Kind of what I expected, but I’m not afraid of fiddling around to get it to work. Most of the time there’s a learning curve by fiddling, but I kinda hit a wall with that :D

      Thanks for taking the time and commenting, I’ll get back at you once I worked through everything. Really, thanks, appreciate it

      edits: typos, formatting

    • VarenOP
      1•9 months ago

      @Guenther_Amanita
      Ok I went through the universal-blue.org docs quite fastly. Downloaded the ISO, installed it on the USB with Fedora Media Writer, tried to boot from it - Unkown TPM Error. Googling says to deactivate TPM, but I have no option in UEFI to deactivate TPM.

      Tried by deactivating Secure Boot, but didn’t do the trick unfortunately.
      Started again into Win11 and suspended BitLocker (enabled, not by choice…)
      Reboot into USB - now I can go through the grub menu without any TPM Errors. Phew. Up to the last option “Install” and afterwards I get the well known black screen with no info, no cursor, nothing. Just the lighting of my USB Devices going off completely.

      Now, didn’t try with acpi=off, but since the behavior is the exact same as with every other distro I tried (in the meantime I also tried with Mint and even GarudaOS…) I guess that I could boot with acpi=off, but just up to the point, where something (e.g. nvidia drivers/gpu or efibootmgr) relies on acpi and it doesn’t work because it is off… so hit the same wall again :(

      as for CSM, i searched again through my UEFI and there is absolutely no option for CSM. Will go through Google and ASUS again tomorrow in that regards.

      • @[email protected]
        1•9 months ago

        I’ve also had problems installing uBlue with their net-installer. I had to download the official Silverblue and then rebase.
        But if you said this issue persists on many distros across, and that those settings are also probably not causing the problem, I can’t help you much.

        I don’t think Bitlocker should be the issue, since you’re installing on another drive.
        I will also search in the meantime with you together.

        • @[email protected]
          1•9 months ago

          @[email protected] Alright. How new is your PC? Is it that new that you could return it? Or is it an older model, so you could imagine replacing it soon (or some of its’ parts) with one that’s better compatible?

          While Linux is very compatible with the vast majority of devices (including MS-Surface devices, and even fridges!) it just can be a huge pain in the ass for some other devices, when the manufacturer actively decides against other OSs than Windows. Asus (ROG) and Nvidia are notorious to be a bit annoying to work with on Linux, and in your case, with both of them at the same time, they can be the shittiest entry experience ever!

          I think not you, but the hardware is the problem. I just don’t wish anyone that their first experience with Linux is days of troubleshooting, followed by days and weeks of constant crashes, bad performance and other annoyances.
          You know, if I wouldn’t be a huge Linux fanboy, I wouldn’t try to help newcomers for free.

          But even I have to admit, you’re better off with Windows for now, on this hardware. Maybe try it on a laptop you have lying around or wait until you can get better supported hardware (AMD GPU, other MB, etc.). Right now, I’m not sure if you will get a seamless experience. A workaround, on top of a workaround, isn’t fun and might frustrate you after some time. I’m sorry, it’s just my honest answer for now…

          You definitely still can (and maybe even should) try Linux if you’re interested. I find that great! Just don’t put your hopes way too high up for a seamless and wonderful experience.

          As I said in the beginning, I would recommend checking out the uBlue builds. There’s Bazzite, which also offers Nvidia and Asus images.

          For the Asus ones, I’m not sure if the ones provided, which are intended for the ROG Ally and laptops, are also beneficial for desktops.
          But, for the Nvidia one, you’ll have way better chances for it to work. In general, I would advise you to choose an immutable distro, especially Bazzite, because it’s gaming focused for a gaming focused PC. Why? Your setup will probably break some time with your (shitty) hardware. With uBlue, you can just roll back and select the image from yesterday, and your PC will boot the exact same way as it did yesterday and will always work! This saves you much trouble, trust me.

          Also, maybe plug in the HDMI into another port, e.g. the onboard display instead of the Nvidia.

          Continue searching for the CSM, or however it is called on your MB. Not only because you want to install Linux, no, because it’s also important to diagnose and fix problems (e.g. MemTest86+, bootrepair, etc.). I also forgot a few times to enable CSM in the past and had very similar issues booting from an USB, also with black screen, error messages, etc.

          I always recommend GPT as a first contact point. Before asking, I often ask Huggingface Chat, with the web search toggle on, and that is very often successful. I did try it and got pretty much the exact answers already mentioned in this comment section. But, if this section didn’t exist, it would have been very helpful. Here is the pasted answer from GPT if you’re interested.

          Give me an update if it worked please. Even if it didn’t, it will be very helpful for other future users when they find this thread :)

          • VarenOP
            1•9 months ago

            @Guenther_Amanita
            Thanks for your opinion and and assessment - what d‘you think would make sense to replace? MoBo, graphics,…?

            • @[email protected]
              0•9 months ago

              I’d say the motherboard.

              The GPU is very expensive, and I’ve heard quite a few experience reports that Nvidia GPUs work decently well with today’s drivers.
              You would need those definitely of course (e.g. with uBlue-Nvidia images or easy installation of the drivers).

              The MB on the other hand is relatively cheap compared to the GPU, as long as you replace it with one that supports your current hardware (CPU, RAM, etc.).

              I personally would just skip the Linux thing right now if I were you. Throwing out a perfectly fine piece of hardware, and risking that the replacement doesn’t work instantly, just wouldn’t be worth it for me.
              Wait until you would want to get a new PC anyway, and then buy one with better compatibility.

              • VarenOP
                1•9 months ago

                @Guenther_Amanita
                I don‘t know about the perfectly fine piece of hardware if it‘s making me so much trouble 🤣 but thank you for your opinion on this, appreciate it

    • VarenOP
      1•9 months ago

      @Guenther_Amanita

      One more thing, I‘m about 100% sure that booting without acpi=off „kills“ my USB Ports after Selection in grub… will now try to research on that