Ubuntu installation stuck on ‘Preparing to install Ubuntu’ screen4 min read

March 15, 2018

Almost two weeks ago I bought a new laptop. I bought an ASUS VivoBook Pro N580VD-E4556T, a decent laptop with great specs.
Display: 15,6 inch (1920 x 1080)
Processor: Intel Core i7-7700HQ
Memory: 16 GB
Storage: 256 GB SDD + 1 TB HDD
Graphic card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050
It came with a Windows 10 Home edition pre-installed! For me as a Linux user I had to install Linux, Ubuntu 16.04.
My old laptop, I still use it, was also an Asus laptop. He is now 5 years old, and he has 16 GB ram and 256 GB SDD + 1 TB HDD. The laptop has dual booting, I have installed Windows 10 and Ubunutu 16.04 on it.

The problem

Installing Ubuntu 16.04 is quite straight forward and doesn’t require the user to be a Linux Ninja to get a laptop up and running with Ubunutu. However, this time the installation wasn’t as easy as I always have experienced. I wanted to install Ubuntu from an usb stick which I made bootable using rufus on windows 10. The usb had a GPT partition scheme for UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). The laptop doesn’t have BIOS, it’s new and it has UEFI, and the windows 10 was installed in UEFI mode, so it’s quite obvious that I will install Ubuntu in UEFI mode as well. After booting into Ubuntu installation and passing the first two screen, the installation stuck on the ‘Preparing to install Ubuntu’.

Preparing to install Ubuntu- Peshmerge.io — Screenshot where the installation got stuck on

I waited more than 10 minutes and I thought maybe it needs time, but no luck. I changed the usb stick and tried another one, but I got the same result! I started then googling and I have seen many topics/questions on askubuntu.com, ubuntuforums and many other sites. It seems many users have this problem and some other problems which are somehow related to it.

The solution

It seems that the problem has to do with APCI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface).

ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) is an open industry specification co-developed by Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Phoenix, and Toshiba.

ACPI establishes industry-standard interfaces enabling OS-directed configuration, power management, and thermal management of mobile, desktop, and server platforms. _Sourec

As I read, the problem is that the Linux kernel had some issues with dealing with the ACPI standard, which means that the laptop doesn’t know how to act, especially when it comes to Linux. It’s noteworthy that Windows doesn’t have this problem!
I have tried to install Ubuntu 17 and 18, because I thought maybe a newer kernel will be able to overcome this problem, but I didn’t helped!

The solution can be done by editing the grub file, adjusting/adding kernel parameters, during the installation. Check the following picture:

Select the ‘Install Ubuntu’ , don’t press Enter, but press e. You will get another screen where you can adjust kernel options. You can solve the problem using one of the two kernel parameters:

1) Acpi=off

You add it, just like in the picture, after quiet splash acpi=off
This will disable the acpi. For more info about this parameter and other ones check this page Kernel-Parameters.txt
You have to press F10 after adding it to grub, this will lead you to the installation which can be done as usual without any freezes!

2) nomodeset

You add it, just like in the picture, after quiet splash nomodeset
This tells the kernel to not start video drivers until the system is up and running.
You have to press F10 after adding it to grub, this will lead you to the installation which can be done as usual!
Note: adding this kernel parameter temporarily or permanently (by editing /etc/default/grub after installing Ubuntu) will adjust the screen resolution back to 800*600. So don’t panic! What you have to do is delete the parameter from the grub file and then re-save it.

When you edit the grub file, sudo vim etc/default/grub don’t forget to run this command sudo update-grub and then reboot!

Conclusion

If you search online with specific keywords which are related to this problem, you will notice how many users are affected by this problem. The reason isn’t clear and all what you read are speculations. No one can point out what exactly the reason is, it could be wifi, touchpad or graphic card.

In my onion, I can conclude and say with 100% certainty that this problem is “GPU” related, and specifically nVidia. You don’t need to disable all acpi, you have only prevent the kernel using your graphic card until the system is fully up and running.

Update 16/05/2018

Based on comments from @GUILHERME and @EDMUND if my solution doesn’t work try to add:

acpi_osi or&nbsp;“noapic” and “nolapic” to the kernel options.

For more information about the kernel options and what do they mean exactly, check this link: http://redsymbol.net/linux-kernel-boot-parameters/

18 responses

guilherme sousa

May 13, 2018

Hello Peshmerge Morad how are you?

Thanks for this tutorial, i have an acer nitro 5 with intel i7 and geforce 1050 and nvidia on it, i did installed ubuntu once, with the stock UEFI parameters, with secure boot enabled, and i was sucessfull tu run the whole installation, i did a partition first at windows and tried to install the ubuntu on that partiiton, it all installed successfully, and i did the update, but when i restarted, i went directly to windows, it didnt created and ubuntu boot file, i did it manually, and i wasa ble to see grub again, but when i tried to log in, with user and password, the next screen keep blank (purple in this case) with the mouse working, and i couldnt pass this fase, so i did a full uninstall of the ubuntu, but when i tried to reinstall it, it kept freezing during installation, and try ubuntu with this message right before ubuntu starts (problem loading uefi:db x.509 certificate (-65) .

Finally i followed your tutorial and tried the acpi=off, and it worked, it is not stucked anymore, but when i get to the wireless section, it doesnt show any wifi avaiable, including mine, only some intel corporation wireless 7265(dual band wireless-ac 7265), thats probably due to the temporary disable of the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface, but would that be okay to continue the installation like this?

Many thanks in advance!

Reply
1. Peshmerge Morad
  
  May 13, 2018
  
  Hi GUILHERME,
  
  I am glad my tutorial could help you! I would suggest you to use `nomodeset` instead of setting `acpi=off`.
  Let me know please! Maybe we can dig further!
  
  Reply
  1. guilherme
    
    May 14, 2018
    
    Hello and thanks for the fast reply, i have tried using acpi_osi= instead of acpi=off and it worked during the installation adn the wifi keept on working! Hope this can help people that encountered the same problem as I 🙂
    
    Reply
    1. Peshmerge Morad
      
      May 16, 2018
      
      Great to hear you have managed to solve it!
      
      Reply
    2. Mateus Melo
      
      September 21, 2018
      
      Hi, Guilherme. Did you use “acpi_osi=” or “acpi_osi=off”? Thanks in advance.
      
      Reply
edmund

May 15, 2018

Just posting to help others who may have encountered the same problem. Like Peshmerge Morad, I was also trying to install Ubuntu 16.04 via the live usb (created using Startup Disk Creator on a Ubuntu 14.04 machine). However, the installation still froze even after I added “acpi=off” and “nomodeset” to the kernel boot options. I was only able to finally install Ubuntu 16.04 after I added “noapic” and “nolapic” to the kernel boot options. Do give it a try if “acpi=off” and “nomodeset” do not work for you. Please note that I was installing Ubuntu 16.04 on a fairly old Intel computer (2010?) running 2009 BIOS. Also note that you will need to edit the grub to remove the additional kernel boot options after successfully booting Ubuntu 16.04 for the first time.

Reply
1. Peshmerge Morad
  
  May 16, 2018
  
  Thanks Edmund, I will add your solution and the solution of Guilherme to the post!
  
  Reply
Rohan

July 1, 2018

I am facing same issue and tried the 2 solution but not get result.

Reply
1. Peshmerge Morad
  
  July 2, 2018
  
  Hi Rohan,
  
  Can you give more detailed information about your problem? Would you also give more information about your hardware specs?
  
  Reply
Diego

July 31, 2018

Hi, i am having the same problem here. I tried using all of them and none of them work. Im not sure if it’s related to the way im adding the kernel parameters, i mean, in the screenshot you added it seems you should write these commands after the —, but some other webpages say otherwise. Also when i use nomodeset my screen becomes unreadable. Im not sure what i am doing wrong. I have a HP probook working with windows 8, i3-3110M cpu @2.40Ghz, 4Gb Ram, x64 bits processor. I would like to thank in advanced if you could help me

Reply
1. Peshmerge Morad
  
  July 31, 2018
  
  Hi Diego,
  
  Sorry to hear that non of the above suggested solutions could help you get rid of the problem.
  I wonder what kind of Graphic card do you have? Most of the time the problem occurs because of the graphic card. In my case I solve the problem permanently after installing the new driver for my nVidia graphic card, so I no longer need to set the parameters. I use them only for the first couple of times to install and to boot into the system. After installing the proper nVidia drivers, the problem disappears!
  
  Cheers, Peshmerge
  
  Reply
Naseef Ummer

August 3, 2018

Alternatively one could first select “Try Ubuntu” and enter into to Ubuntu Desktop. In the Desktop, one will find “Install Ubuntu” icon. Now, proceed normally with the installation without connecting to any Wi-Fi. This should work.

Reply
1. Peshmerge Morad
  
  August 3, 2018
  
  Hi Naseef,
  
  I wish it was so easy! otherwise I would never write this blog post. Even with choosing “Try ubuntu and entering the desktop mode” it didn’t work!
  
  Reply
Aravind Unnikrishnan

September 20, 2018

Hi Peshmerge Morad,
Will the graphics card and drivers in windows work fine after doing all this?
Will it affect the normal performance of the machine? Mine is also Vivobook pro n580vd.

Reply
1. Peshmerge Morad
  
  September 20, 2018
  
  Hi Aravind,
  
  It doesn’t affect the driver in windows! Everything will work fine as expected on windows because you are only editing the configuration for Linux!
  
  Reply
UbuntuNewbs

January 17, 2019

What do you mean by “Note: adding this kernel parameter temporarily or permanently (by editing /etc/default/grub after installing Ubuntu) will adjust the screen resolution back to 800*600. So don’t panic! What you have to do is delete the parameter from the grub file and then re-save it.”

What do i have to change into what? Please help me
This is my first time using ubuntu so i dont know anything

Reply
1. Peshmerge Morad
  
  January 17, 2019
  
  Hi, do you experience the same problem?
  What I mean, you have to add those parameters to your kernel parameters. If you read the post one more time, you will get to know how you have to do it!
  
  Feel free to ask more questions 🙂
  
  Reply
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