Dual boot problems

[Var-mint]

Hello Mint Community,
Linux Mint 20.2 Uma Xfce, and sometimes MX21-Xfce, No Windows.

I’m a newb and this could become a little complicated but I condensed my original write-up for this post in order to keep it brief.
Kernel 5.13 does not solve the problem.

Given: Two laptops, R & S (I’ll distinguish if necessary, but same symptoms)
Two relatively new unused laptops, identical except ram, and one has one more ext4 partition for third distro, and mint may have the default or 5.13 kernel, everything is GPT and UEFI, or I intended to install by that method. The SSDs are not stock, they are two identical W.D. SSDs. Gsmartctl does not provide complete report, but all BIOS tests passed. I purchased the two laptops ~ a year ago, now attempting to install Mint and MX Linux. Wiped Windows completely (except from efibootmgr), created a GPT partitioning theme using UEFI ESP with boot and esp flags. I almost always (when I didn’t isn’t reported in this post) reformat the ESP, shared home, and root partitions if possible in an attempt to eliminate any prior installation problem carry-over. Again, sometimes I did remove MX Linux from the efibootmgr, sometimes I didn’t – this may be relevant - see later.

I’d assume that the issues are in either Mint, MX Linux, Hardware, Firmware, or ME.
The following is a generalization but fairly accurate or I wouldn’t include it.
So far I have only installed Mint first, and MX second, also I tried Linux Lite instead of Mint (installing first also) with what seemed to be the same results.

Mint installed alone, it runs fine.
Mint installed first, MX installed second (last) MX runs fine – see below.

Quickly, I would like to absolutely confirm again, but I believe that if I have MX in efibootmgr the following occurs:
1 – Mint installed first, MX second, Mint takes ~ 6 minutes to boot and is almost useless – Condition - 2
2 – Mint Only installation, but occasional crashes with maybe hundreds of line that are similar to the following:

2133.765759 ext4_fs error (device nvme01p6): ext? Find.entry inode #1212301: comm systemd.journal:reading directory #121301 comm iblock 0

primarily regarding the root and home partitions.
Note in quotations because this was approximately copied by hand and is only representative of the error messages.

Inxi -Fxxxrz from Laptop R in (Condition - 2) with Mint installed First, MX second. - Mint ~ useless.

Code: Select all

rmintp@rmintPav:~$ inxi -Fxxxrz
System:
  Kernel: 5.13.0-22-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A 
  Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 tk: Gtk 3.24.20 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm4 
  dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 20.2 Uma base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: HP product: HP Pavilion Laptop 15z-eh000 v: N/A 
  serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: HP model: 87C5 v: 35.24 serial: <filter> UEFI: AMI v: F.10 
  date: 11/03/2020 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 42.5 Wh condition: 42.5/42.5 Wh (100%) volts: 12.9/11.3 
  model: Hewlett-Packard Primary type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Full 
  cycles: 382 
CPU:
  Topology: 8-Core model: AMD Ryzen 7 4700U with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 
  type: MCP arch: Zen rev: 1 L2 cache: 4096 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm 
  bogomips: 31940 
  Speed: 1402 MHz min/max: 1400/2000 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 
  1: 1396 2: 1397 3: 1400 4: 1398 5: 1397 6: 1397 7: 1397 8: 1397 
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Renoir vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: amdgpu v: kernel 
  bus ID: 04:00.0 chip ID: 1002:1636 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: amdgpu,ati 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.41.0 5.13.0-22-generic LLVM 12.0.0) 
  v: 4.6 Mesa 21.0.3 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
  bus ID: 04:00.1 chip ID: 1002:1637 
  Device-2: AMD Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor 
  vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_rn_pci_acp3x v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.5 
  chip ID: 1022:15e2 
  Device-3: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.6 chip ID: 1022:15e3 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.13.0-22-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter 
  vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: rtw_8822ce v: N/A port: f000 
  bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:c822 
  IF: wlo1 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 960.67 GiB used: 7.90 GiB (0.8%) 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Western Digital model: WDS100T2B0C-00PXH0 
  size: 931.51 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> rev: 211070WD 
  scheme: GPT 
  ID-2: /dev/sda type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: Ultra size: 29.16 GiB 
  serial: <filter> rev: 1.00 scheme: MBR 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 29.40 GiB used: 7.64 GiB (26.0%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/nvme0n1p6 
  ID-2: /home size: 29.40 GiB used: 111.1 MiB (0.4%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/nvme0n1p4 
  ID-3: swap-1 size: 8.00 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap 
  dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 48.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 34 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
  1: deb http://mirrors.gigenet.com/linuxmint/repo uma main upstream import backport
  2: deb http://ftp.usf.edu/pub/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
  3: deb http://ftp.usf.edu/pub/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
  4: deb http://ftp.usf.edu/pub/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
  5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
  6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
Info:
  Processes: 234 Uptime: 6m Memory: 15.00 GiB used: 680.1 MiB (4.4%) 
  Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash 
  v: 5.0.17 running in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.0.38 
rmintp@rmintPav:~$ 

The following lsblk is from MX Linux of this laptop to show partitioning only.

lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 1 29.2G 0 disk
└─sda1 8:1 1 29.2G 0 part /media/rlitep/631F-49D0
nvme0n1 259:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 512M 0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 8G 0 part [SWAP]
├─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 8G 0 part /tmp
├─nvme0n1p4 259:4 0 30G 0 part /home
├─nvme0n1p5 259:5 0 30G 0 part
├─nvme0n1p6 259:6 0 30G 0 part /
├─nvme0n1p7 259:7 0 790G 0 part /mnt/DATA
└─nvme0n1p8 259:8 0 35G 0 part /mnt/Restore

For clarification, I am currently in Condition 2 Laptop R

Condition – 1 Mint Only - Mint from very fresh install, using Gparted - I format the ESP, Home SHARED, Mint root, and MX root, no MX on efibootmgr:
Mint runs fine. Installed the latest kernel (5.13) for brightness keys to function.

Condition – 2 Mint & MX. Mint freshly installed as above, MX installed second, obviously MX is on efibootmgr.
I will not do Condition – 3 YET. Because I want to be able to give any requested feedback at this Condition.

Condition – 3 Mint Only This Condition is the same as Condition – 1 except that MX is still on efibootmgr.

I am certain that Mint will take ~ 6 minutes to load, and it will mostly be useless as described earlier.
MX runs fine.
Not sure, but I may have gotten a crash during the Mint installation, possibly related-unrelated.

I can give more redundant and possibly unnecessary details and screenshots, but I’ll stop here for now.
I hope this is sufficient.

EDIT: I know that I can try other options, e.g. install MX first, don't install a GRUB, but I'd like to know what the problem is.

Thank you.

[Pierre]

it would seem that I've got both of those systems, working on an few machines,
- but I've Installed them both in ms-dos mode .. using all four primary partitions, too.

this scenario in in UEFI / EFI mode, though.

since both of those system, do have an Boot Repair Tool in their respective Live Media,
- can you use that Boot Repair Tool, to redo the Grub Boot & the Boot Menu .. for each system.

do one at an time, and then check that, the repair has worked, so that Linux System is now bootable.

do see if the Boot Repair Tool can get each system working, again, without trying for any dual_boot method
- although each repair, should also find & acknowledge the other Linux System.

thus, see if either repair tool, will work, with both systems .. as an dual_boot scenario, that is.
or .. if you can only get the one Linux System, working, from each Repair Tool.

it may take you, a few attempts to establish an boot pattern, if any.

[AndyMH]

If you have a shared home partition between both OS I would expect problems. If you must have a shared home partition use different usernames with each install.

[Var-mint]

If you have a shared home partition between both OS I would expect problems. If you must have a shared home partition use different usernames with each install.

Thanks, but particularly earlier, most of my laptops have had two distros sharing the home partition, and I've always used different usernames.
I was so concerned with that potential problem, that I even used different computer names on these troublesome installations.

But thank you for the advice and replying because I didn't mention it, and I assume that you're not prescient.

I was hoping that someone could tell me how I was installing either distro incorrectly, I do have screenshots at each step of the installation, even Gparted screenshots. I’m a newb, but I’ve installed only in GPT with UEFI maybe a hundred times over the past few years.
I've never encounter dual-boot installation problems before, post dual-boot upgrade problems with windows or arch with debian/ubuntu distros - - yes.

I've installed this quite a few times, and I guess my question to others with more experience than me should possibly be:
Does this just occasionally occur? Should I just accept that this happens now and then and get on with it? It being either installing MX first and Mint second, or using only one GRUB, or using boot repair as suggested by Pierre and on the MX forum? Again, I originally stubbornly wanted to find the problem, whether it be the installer or me.

Thank you again.

[Var-mint]

it may take you, a few attempts to establish an boot pattern, if any.

Pierre,
I replied to AndyMX first because it was an easier reply, but what I asked him applies here also:
Do these things just occasionally occur? Should I just get on with it?

The MX forum also suggested that I repair it, but as I said to AndyMX, I originally stubbornly wanted to find the problem.

Part of the reason that I wanted to not repair it and install it correctly in the first place, is that I’m giving one of these laptops to an individual who has zero linux experience. I took screenshots of how to install an I was hoping that I could show them how to install these two distros properly. This makes me think that I should install MX first and Mint second – assuming that would work, but then again, screenshots of using Boot Repair may help too - again, assuming that would work.

I’ll soon have to do something other than just reinstalling.

Thanks for replying and the advice.

[Var-mint]

Installed with Mint only, and MX is not in eifbootmgr....this is the first time that Mint crashed without MX being in efibootmgr - I believe.

I removed the WD 1TB Blue SN550 SSD and replaced it with the original one to see if there may be a problem with the SSD, unfortunately after installing the original SSD, it is very similar as it’s a WD 250GB Blue SN530.

I then installed Mint 1st, and MX 2nd, same problems with ~6 minute Mint boot and Mint is useless, can’t edit files, etc.

I then installed MX 1st, and Mint 2nd, both seem to boot and function fine, but I haven’t used it enough to see if Mint crashes – or MX.