Black screen on install - Comet Lake XPS13

[sadpanda70]

Hello,

I have a fresh new dell xps13 (Comet Lake CPU i7-10510U), and I just cannot install linux mint 19.2 from USB (same for 19.1). That's my 3rd XPS13 and I use Linux mint for a lot of time now, but that's my first one where i just cannot do anything. My USB stick is OK (ubuntu 19.04 boots without any problem from it on this computer)

What I have tried : nomodeset and Co., compatibility-mode, acpi off, and a lot of kernel voodoo options. What is frustrating is that I just don't have any log on screen, so I have no clue of what could be wrong. After the grub menu, the screen goes black, and that's all.

Secure boot is disabled, and I have tried to toggle some UEFI options in BIOS without success. The BIOS cannot be turned to legacy.

What can I try to unlock the situation or troubleshoot ? I WANT linux mint!

Thanks by advance.

[kato181]

Does your system have on board video or a separate video card installed? If you have both then there maybe a conflict just disable the onboard video in the bios

[mintyme]

I'm also encountering the same issue. I recently bought an XPS 13 (7390) non-touch display, which only has the Intel UHD gfx.

I've also tried all the nomodeset & co. trickery, along with Cinnamon and Mate 19.2, and Cinnamon 18.3, all without luck. The screen remains blank - blank but not switched off. I've also tried connecting to an external monitor but it is the same.

However, Win10 and Ubuntu both work.

My USB has a light on it, and after selecting the first item in grub the screen goes blank and the USB light starts blinking for a while as though it is loading. After it stops I can press the power button and the light blinks for a few moments. If I then press the "enter" button, the machine switches off.

I would say that it boots correctly, but there are issues with the display drivers. I have no idea how to fix that.

[smurphos]

So is the live session OK? It's post install you can't get to a GUI?

i7-10510U appears to be a brand new (released this quarter) 10th generation CPU. I suspect the default kernel in all current Mint 19.x releases is too old to support it's inbuilt graphics. If Ubuntu 19.04 works then hopefully this should..

If you can get into grub, you can get into recovery mode and from there should be able to

Code: Select all

apt install --install-recommends linux-generic-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-hwe-18.04

Reboot and keep fingers crossed.

[offset8]

However, Win10 and Ubuntu both work.

Which version of Ubuntu ? I didn't succeed to get it worked. It freeze after some ACPI errors

[mintyme]

To clarify a couple of points on my side:

* it's a new laptop with Win10 installed and I want to relpace it with mint, so I guess there's no recovery mode to boot in to
* I tried the ubuntu-18.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso image; selecting the try without installing menu item in grub. This booted to the desktop, which I can see and didn't encounter any issues for the minute or so I ckicked around the file system and opened applications - I did not however choose to install it.

Unless Ubuntu 18 has a newer kernel than Mint 19, then this probsbly isn't the problem.

[smurphos]

Unless Ubuntu 18 has a newer kernel than Mint 19, then this probsbly isn't the problem.

It does - 18.04.3 ISO ships with the HWE 5.0.x kernel. All of the extant Mint 19.x ISOs still ship with an LTS 4.15.x kernel.

The 5.0 kernel is available as an optional upgrade post install if you can get that far.

[mintyme]

It does - 18.04.3 ISO ships with the HWE 5.0.x kernel. All of the extant Mint 19.x ISOs still ship with an LTS 4.15.x kernel.

The 5.0 kernel is available as an optional upgrade post install if you can get that far.

Ah, okay then. Thanks for the info smurphos, but with no screen I can't see how I will get it installed. I can only hope a 19.3 is released with the updated kernel, otherwise I guess it'll be the middle of next year.

Thanks all for the help and info.

[sadpanda70]

Sorry for my late answer. I have tried many things (and that was VERY frustrating), including building a brand new ISO with cubic + mint 18.3, 19, 19.1, 19.2 with an up-to-date kernel from mainline (V5.0, v5.1, V5.2, v5.3.1), bug things continued to fail. I have built MANY different ISOs, with or without an up-to-date linux firmware too

Surprisingly, ubuntu 18.04.3 works mainly out of the box : live usb boots, system installs without any problem (and without any proprietary driver). However, wifi does not work. The driver for the "killer" was included in kernel v5.2 AFAIK. Once kernel is updated, wifi is back and the system is plainly functional.

What leads me to think that something in wrong with mint, because the kernel (5.3.1, the same that I install on ubuntu) does not fix the blank screen with my custom ISOs

Something strange, it's that the default OS on this machine is ubuntu 18.04 with kernel 4.15... IMO, the wifi driver has been specifically compiled in factory by DELL.

TLDR: I ended up with ubuntu 18.04, + mainline kernel v5.3.1 + cinnamon from a PPA. Looking forward for the next linux mint release in any case :p

[sadpanda70]

So is the live session OK? It's post install you can't get to a GUI?

It's live session that fails, just after selecting any line from grub :/

[sadpanda70]

It does - 18.04.3 ISO ships with the HWE 5.0.x kernel. All of the extant Mint 19.x ISOs still ship with an LTS 4.15.x kernel.

I have built linux mint ISOs with an updated kernel, the live session still failed :/

[smurphos]

Maybe it needs the rest of the HWE Enablement stack, not just the kernel - there is a slight bump in xserver-xorg version in 18.04.3 as compared to Mint 19.x

[kato181]

You could try Ukuu and the latest kernel from there and see if that works.

[sadpanda70]

Thanks for the tip. I have to admit that now that my new computer is UP and running, I am way too lazy to restart the whole installation process.