Acer aspire freeze while installing grub on ESP

[mbooyzen]

Hi

What i tried:
Installing mx17.1; 18.1; 18.2 on an Acer Aspire ES15 from CD and flash drive
the system seems to be uefi only and cannot boot from bios.
I got windows removed after a few big words and reading, booting from a MX DVD.
I disabled secure-boot.
First I flash drive couldn't boot so I changed MX live USB maker to gpt instead of dos, this worked.
every time i installed it somehow hangs/freezes while installing grub. all 3 iso's verified and checked after writing.
tried various partitioning on msdos and gpt tables, letting MX installer use entire disk.
installing grub to mbr installs flawlessly but doesn't boot(no bootable media)
installing to esp freezes the screen to a point nothing works(keyboard, mouse, not even able to "reisub", not sure if enabled on live media)
install and skipping grub completes and installing grub2 via boot repair has the same freezing effect.
couldn't find anything on the forum yet.

only way i found is somewhere you can get a different bios for it that can enable legacy boot, I'm not keen on flashing bios(never done it before) so if anyone can make me look like an idiot and point out what i missed, please do.

[fehlix]

So sonds it works normaly but only when install GRUB is involved it hangs, right?
Please post "Quick System Info" ( type quick with the Menu or run "inxi -Fxrz" from terminal and post text-output
here between code-tags. ( [code] text-output here [/code]).
Thanks

[mbooyzen]

sorry

yes, everything else seems to work perfectly.

Code: Select all

[code]
System:    Host: mx1 Kernel: 4.19.0-1-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 6.3.0 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 Distro: MX-18.2_x64 Continuum Apr 7  2019 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Acer product: Aspire ES1-533 v: V1.08 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Acer model: Stego_AP v: V1.08 serial: <filter> UEFI: Insyde v: 1.08 
           date: 01/20/2017 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 33.6 Wh condition: 33.6/36.7 Wh (92%) 
           model: COMPAL 0038314234314341 status: Full 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Celeron N3350 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Goldmont 
           rev: 9 L2 cache: 1024 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 4377 
           Speed: 796 MHz min/max: 800/2400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 796 2: 796 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 500 (Broxton 2x6) v: 4.5 Mesa 18.2.6 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor N4200/N3350/E3900 Series Audio Cluster 
           vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:0e.0 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.0-1-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
           vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 1000 bus ID: 01:00.0 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Intel driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 1000 bus ID: 02:00.0 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 946.02 GiB used: 1.41 GiB (0.1%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST1000LM035-1RK172 size: 931.51 GiB 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB model: USB FLASH DRIVE size: 14.50 GiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 2.91 GiB used: 22.6 MiB (0.8%) fs: overlay source: ERR-102 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.00 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 39.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antix.list 
           1: deb http://iso.mxrepo.com/antix/stretch stretch main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://ftp.br.debian.org/debian/ stretch-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://ftp.br.debian.org/debian/ stretch main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb https://ftp.saix.net/pub/linux/distributions/mxlinux/mx/repo/ stretch main non-free
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
Info:      Processes: 197 Uptime: 7m Memory: 3.68 GiB used: 527.4 MiB (14.0%) Init: SysVinit 
           runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 6.3.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.12 inxi: 3.0.29 

[/code]

[timkb4cq]

As far as I can determine it's not that you're missing something - it's that Acer removed a BIOS setting that allows you mark the MX uefi boot file as Trusted.
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=281690
However since Aspire es 15 is not one model, rather a series of models, I can't verify that. There are BIOS updates available on the Acer support site for various es 15 models. Supposedly the 1.08 version removed the feature and the 1.09 version restored it.

If you go through the entire Linux Mint thread you will see that, in the end, reFind was able to turn the trick for that frustrated Acer owner.

[mbooyzen]

As far...

Thanks for this, I'll read through over the weekend as my time is restricted for the next few days. Will update asap.
Thanks again

[mbooyzen]

Indeed this can be done. Thank you timkb4cq for pointing me in the right direction.
I will edit this post https://askubuntu.com/a/876153, to what i did differently below.
All credits go to the poster in the above link, this is an edited version to make it mx-friendly

Code: Select all

    1. Boot mx Live DVD/USB in testing mode and open terminal

    2. Run installation process without installing bootloader by:

    I used gui installer and unchecked install GRUB2, i did the standard install using entire disk

    continue in live after installer exits, do not reboot 

    3. Mount newly installed file system on /mnt:

    sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
    sudo mkdir /mnt/boot/efi
    sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi
    for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done

(where sda2 is the root partition and sda1 is the EFI system partition)

    4. Load efivars by:

    sudo modprobe efivars

    5. Reinstall grub-install for a 64-bit version

sudo apt-get install --reinstall grub-efi-amd64
sudo grub-install --no-nvram --root-directory=/mnt

//This had a popup where i selected to use the package managers version


   6. Change root to /mnt and update grub

sudo chroot /mnt
sudo update-grub

   7. Move and rename the installed bootloader

cd /boot/efi/EFI
mkdir /BOOT
sudo cp -R mx/* BOOT/
cd BOOT
sudo cp grubx64.efi bootx64.efi

   8. Reboot the system.

And it worked. I don't know whether any updates to grub will change anything. I believe changes will be made in /boot/efi/EFI/mx and /BOOT will remain unchanged so I'll deal with that when the time comes. For now it runs
Thanks Again

[jajk]

Experienced exact same problem trying to install MX18.3 on Acer ES1-533.
On other versions of Linux, same thing happens. The key to it all is the --no-nvram switch to stop the computer crashing during grub install due to an intentionally dodgy UEFI implementation.
This is not unique to Acer laptops and is/was relatively common in some low-end laptops that were trying their hardest to be tied to being solely Win10 machines. I couldn't even regress to installing Win7 on mine..... another brick in the wall Microsoft and Acer
Now my biggest frustration is why, across all branches of Linux, has no one though to add the ability to insert command-line options to the grub installer during the install process?
So a simple question:
Can grub be manually re-installed to hard drive with the necessary switches from live USB in a simpler fashion to the solution posted above?

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Can grub be manually re-installed to hard drive with the necessary switches from live USB in a simpler fashion to the solution posted above?

The --removable option for the grub-install command will copy grubx64.efi to $ESP/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI automatically.

Debian buster has an arch-install-scripts package that supplies the arch-chroot command, this will mount /proc, /sys & /dev automatically before chrooting — the .deb of that package should be "safe" to install in MX.

Note that efivarfs does not need to be mounted if no NVRAM entries are being made and also there is no --root-directory option for the grub-install command, nor is such an option needed if chroot has been used.

[fehlix]

Now my biggest frustration is why, across all branches of Linux, has no one though to add the ability to insert command-line options to the grub installer during the install process?
So a simple question:
Can grub be manually re-installed to hard drive with the necessary switches from live USB in a simpler fashion to the solution posted above?

Actually the MX installer which comes with MX 18.3 does two addtional steps in reg to EFI installation:
It first installs grub without nvram (using --no-nvram) and in addition it
adds the default EFI-boot loader to /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi
Only after those finished successfully the installer will run again a grub-install including nvram update.
But even if the the last step would freeze. The grub-install is already finshed.
And you could reboot and could have either the /EFI/BOOT(bootx64.efi listed or taken automatically to boot from,
or choose the boot from EFI-file to boot from
or run "Boot Rescue Menu" to select the EFIloader (which is currently available with antiX-19a2.
So to answer your last question, after MX18.3 installer run the grub-install is already finished,
even if the last nvram seem to have frozen the PC.

EDIT: At leat this is the theory we havn't tested on feezing Acers.
EDIT2: For the need for reinstalling grub manually we have prepared those stepps.
Open command line and run:

Code: Select all

sudo chroot-rescue-scan

Select MX 18 installation from the listed installed
within chrooted prompt run.

Code: Select all

mount -a
grub-install --no-nvram 

[jajk]

Thanks for the info fehlix. There are Lenovo laptops as well as Acer with the exact same issue.
On the reboot after the final freeze, the computer reboots to grub in minimal command line mode i.e. grub is installed but not configured to boot Linux.
For me, this works booting from live USB after installing to hard drive:

sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
sudo mkdir /mnt/boot/efi
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi
for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done

(where sda2 is the root partition and sda1 is the EFI system partition)

sudo grub-install --no-nvram --root-directory=/mnt
sudo chroot /mnt
sudo update-grub
cd /boot/efi/EFI
mkdir /BOOT
sudo cp -R mx/* BOOT/
cd BOOT
sudo cp grubx64.efi bootx64.efi