Linux Mint Forums

Hi all! I discovered Mint some days ago and was not yet able to install it, after some Googling, I'm here for a last try. I think I'll give up in a day or two.

Here is my setup:
- MSI GT70 "Dragon Edition" (French version)
- i7 3630QM with Intel HD Graphics 4000
- nVidia GeForce GTX 675MX. Yes, I have Optimus (and it's amazing... On Windows)
- 2x64 GB mSATA SSD in RAID0
- 750 GB 7200 rpm HDD
- Windows 8 installed on a 100 GB partition of the RAID0
- "EFI" things

I would like to install Linux Mint 14 on the remaining place on the SSDs. Here is what I did:

- Burn the Linux Mint 14 Cinnamon x64 on a DVD. Iso md5 checked.
=> Absolutly no way to start from the DVD in UEFI mode. It is not detected - at all

- Put the ISO to a USB stick with some random program (Universal-USB-Installer-1.9.3.1)
Here I am able to go to the grub/something selection menu in both UEFI and Legacy mode (after disabling secure boot etc in Bios)

- Booting in UEFI mode, because I want to have a UEFI Linux installation.
=> Any choice in the selection menu produce a Black Screen. I tried "nomodeset", "i915.modeset=1 driver intel", "i915.modeset=0", "nvidia.modeset=0", "nouveau.modeset=0". Nothing change. I was not able to go any further.

- Booting in Legacy mode, because I heard you can "translate" a Legacy installation to a UEFI one later.
=> Blank screen after menu selection. Adding "nomodeset" worked and I was able to boot the live session. Then I installed Mint, everything worked great until the end when it obviously failed to install Grub on my EFI disc/partition/thing. I tried to install grub-efi (I have internet access) but I think it's not possible from Legacy mode... Missing some vars on boot or something.

So now I have no idea what I could do. Does anybody have any solution ?
I have been googling for 2 days now. I just found some old post saying "add nomodeset" and users answering "thanks!!!! it worked!!!!" (Yeah always with an amazing number of !!!!!!11eleven)

I would be really happy to use Mint, it looks quite nice. I already installed some Ubuntu versions in the past (don't really remember, 8, 9 then 11 I think) bu it was before the UEFI era.

Thanks to anybody that could help me. Cookie to whom allow me to install it

PS: One last thing. I don't want to touch to Windows 8 - at all. So no formatting, changing partition table to MBR or something. Windows 8 works great and I don't want to break it because of Linux. I just want to try a better dev environment.

PPS: I'm pretty sure the final answer would be "You can't install it".

With EFI you don't use Grub but rEFInd.
Also, your HD graphics is disabled (from BIOS)? And you want to use nVidia?

Is this of any help?
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/858

turboscrew wrote:With EFI you don't use Grub but rEFInd.
Also, your HD graphics is disabled (from BIOS)? And you want to use nVidia?

Is this of any help?
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/858

Thanks for your response !
- I think that if I was able to disable my GPU, it would work ! But my BIOS does not allow me to do this Maybe I could live without it on Linux but I can't disable it.
- I can't convert my partition table to MBR because I have Windows 8 installed and I don't want to touch it (I'm using it and I can't loose it)

I tested rEFInd the other day, but my question is, is it able to boot a Legacy Linux that does not have grub installed ?
Thanks

I'm not very familiar with EFI, but to my knowledge, the system boots either EFI-way or legacy-way.
It's not upto the operating system.
Did you check the 3rd pinned article in this section:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=97221
There is link to here: http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ whete there is another link
http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/
that might be of help.
That might be worth checking too: http://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/efibootmgr.