Complete beginner, need help with installation troubles
Hello, I'm coming from Windows, and picked Bazzite as my first foray into Linux.
I'm trying to set up dual-boot, I have Win 11 installed on my first (1TB) SSD, and would like to install Bazzite on my second (2TB) SSD.
I've just downloaded (~4 hours ago) my flavor of Bazzite (KDE, Desktop/Nvidia) from the website and wrote the image file onto a 16GB thumb drive using Rufus. I've generally followed the installation guide closely, made sure CSM is disabled in the BIOS, as instructed. When I try to boot into the installer, however, a few services fail to start, and nothing further happens. As such, I haven't even reached the installer GUI yet.
I've tried googling the issue, looked through the installation troubleshooting section of the website and a couple subreddits as well as the help posts here, but can't quite find anything to help me out.
So far, in an attempt to fix things as far as I'm comfortable with, I've re-written the image to the drive, even set up Ventoy and tried booting from there, same result. The Fedora Media Writer aborts with an error, telling me the drive can't be written to. Rufus seems to work fine, however.
Here's my hardware, in case that's relevant to the issue:
- AMD R3 3600X
- MSI B450m Mortar Max
- 16GB DDR4 3600
- Nvidia RTX 3070
- 2 Samsung NVME drives, 1TB (Win 11) and 2TB
- 2 1080p monitors
- Focusrite Scarlett Solo 4 USB audio interface
- Internet via Ethernet
I've added an image of where I get stuck. I appreciate any help or pointers!
Update: I've tried the "safe graphics" (or similar) installation from the troubleshoot option, same result.
Solution:Jump to solution
One of the logs showed something about bluetooth, so I just removed the wireless adapters for my mouse and the xbox wireless dongle, and now I'm in the language selection screen
52 Replies
* When you get to the grub menu, try select troubleshooting then select the fallback graphics option and see if it gets into the installer.
* If that fails, please do a sha256 checksum of the ISO (I use 7zip to do that) with the checksum for the ISO that is on the website. You might have a partially downloaded ISO file
Thank you for the reply, will do!
This is what you're referring to, I assume? If so, I've already tried that. I've since re-downloaded the image and managed to get Fedora Media Writer to burn it to the drive however, so I'll try again, and get back to you with the checksum.
Yup that's exactly it. Sometimes the normal graphics option does weird things
Same result, unfortunately. Will compare the checksum now
good luck 🤞
Thanks! "Unfortunately" everything seems to check out according to the .CHECKSUM file from the download page
That's unfortunate, was hoping that was the issue.
* When you write the ISO file, make sure that you eject the drive safely using the eject option. You can sometimes have the last part of the iso not copying over because it doesn't get written if you pull out the drive.
* Maybe try another USB flash drive to eliminate a possible issue with the USB flash drive
I have ejected the drive safely all three times (except for the last time using Fedora Media Writer, which ejected it for me). Unfortunately I don't have another flash drive to test it with, only one with a flipped bit that doesn't like being booted from. I've installed Windows from the one I've written the Bazzite image to completely fine just a week ago, though.
Hmmm try this then, download Fedora Silverblue (if you want gnome) or Fedora Kinoite (if you want KDE). See if that install goes through. If it does just rebase to bazzite. The instructions for rebasing to Bazzite is on the right of the download button
Sounds good, I'll give it a try. Thanks for the help, I appreciate it
I should be able to download Kinoite over the Fedora Media Writer directly, right?
Yes
Looks good. I'll get right on it, thanks!
Yup thats it
Good luck 🙂
Thank you 🫡
I've found this in the meantime, could it be related to that?
https://discord.com/channels/1072614816579063828/1300653374915608637
It appears to be the same story with Fedora Kinoite, Anaconda just doesn't feel like it
There could be a specific setting in BIOS that prevents it from starting, or Windows related problem but since you're trying to dual-boot I don't know what else you could try 🤔
I'm completely clueless, unfortunately
This is a bit out there but anyway... If you have another computer handy and an external encloser, you could try complete the install on the other machine and transplant the SSD/nvme drive over after the install.
Might work if Anaconda doesn't like your hardware for some reason or other
I could probably frankenstein another machine together with much older parts, but I don't have another cpu/mb combination that supports nvme drives. Also no external enclosure, unfortunately.
I just had an idea. To at least find out whether it's the BIOS or Windows Bazzite's refusing to play nice with, would it be possible to temporarily remove my Windows drive and attempt to install after? If so, assuming everything installs fine, would I still be able to set up dual boot if I put the Windows drive back in?
Yeah you can do that. Windows might scream at you but you are booting it on the same hardware
That way you can elimiate if it's anything to do with Windows
Sweet, I'll get right to it. Thanks for all the help so far
Okay, I removed the windows drive, but I still get the same result as before:
Are there any bios settings that are known to be problematic? Anything else I could try, that doesn't require a second machine?
fast boot off? Secure boot off?
Does pressing CTRL+ALT+F2 or CTRL+ALT+F3 all the way up to F12 show anything?
Secure boot is off. Memory fast boot was on, disabling it made no difference, however.
Pressing CTRL+ALT+F2 gives me this:
CTRL+ALT+F4 shows this:
The rest either do nothing, or show the same as CTRL+ALT+F2 did
Your flash usb drive might be on it's way out
Maybe worth getting another usb flash drive and see if you get the same error
Alrighty, thanks! I'll drop by a store in a bit and grab myself another pen drive
Grabbed a Sandisk drive from the store around the corner, used Fedora Media Writer to write the image to it, and I'm still getting the same result:
Fedora Media Writer seems to check the image after writing, too, so I had a feeling this wouldn't change much. Can never have too many pen drives, though.
At this point I'd recommend trying Nobara. You've tried so many different things with Bazzite and Nobara is a really decent option imo
I'd rather see if someone has some pointers, I can't imagine that my setup (pretty common hardware) is just flat-out incompatible with Bazzite. There has to be some way to troubleshoot this, right?
Sure. happy with that. I'm just flat out of ideas.
Thank you for you the patience in any case, you've been a huge help! Maybe someone else has an idea what might be wrong here
🤞 good luck. Hope someone has some ideas
I got the installer to start!
Solution
One of the logs showed something about bluetooth, so I just removed the wireless adapters for my mouse and the xbox wireless dongle, and now I'm in the language selection screen
The installer shows on my second, vertical monitor though, whilst the BIOS shows on the other one
You might want to have the minimum of things plugged in then. Just your non vertical monitor, keyboard and mouse
Yeah, I just switched inputs for now, that's a problem for another time!
I'm so stoked
Good luck. I really hope this works!!
Thanks! I'll try to get everything up and running now. Thanks again for all your help!
With the amount of patience that you have. You are going to manage just fine with switching over to Linux.
I do hope so! 👍I find this kind of thing fun. It's just hard in the beginning, when you have absolutely no idea what to do and feel like a fish out of water.
I'll mark this as solved as soon as I'm back in Discord for the big screen.
Oh you got it installed!? Sweet!! 🎉 🥳
Was still configuring, installing as we speak. Knock on wood and all that!
There we go!