[Challenge] Help me install Mint 14 on a difficult PC

[Ribesg]

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".

[turboscrew]

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

[Ribesg]

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

[turboscrew]

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.