I’m trying to install Qubes OS 4.2 onto a laptop using a USB flash drive that I flashed on Pop! OS using the terminal. I verified the Qubes OS ISO file’s SHA 256 hash before flashing it onto the flash drive. Here are the laptop’s specs:
Hardware model: Lenovo ThinkBook 15 G2 ITL
Processor: 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz × 8
Graphics: Mesa Intel® Xe Graphics (TGL GT2)
RAM: 16 GiB
Two 1TB M.2 SSDs
Whenever I try installing from USB drive using the first/standard install, the kernel option at the bottom, or even just test the OS, I can only get this far and then the installation process just stalls there:
did your installation media (not the .iso file before flashing) pass the integrity check? As far as I recall, there exists an install option called “Check media and install”, did you use that?
did you enable “Virtualization support” and “Intel VT-d” in the BIOS?
did you check the HCL (Hardware Compatibility List), elsewhere on this Forum, to see other people’s experience with your particular hardware? If you’re lucky, you can get good insight.
It looks like it doesn’t like something with your NVMe drive(s). Have you tried booting without them installed? Obviously, you won’t be able to install the OS…
I am able to boot into Pop! OS. I’ve tested both drives and they both worked on my other computers. I’m going to try removing the drives and seeing if the flash drive is able to boot then.
Removing both drives does allow the boot up process to get further. I let the check complete twice and after it, a lot of text and errors show for a split second and then the screen just turns black and the laptop becomes non responsive. I then have to do a hard shutdown.
The installer does fully load of the check is skipped.
Update: I tested a third drive that has Windows installed and it seems to be able to install onto that one. Tomorrow I’ll test it and make sure that the computer is compatible. If so, I’ll try installing a different distro into the first drive.
Now that’s an odd one for sure. Can you post details of your drives that appear incompatible with Qubes installer? Do you have any Intel/Chipset specific BIOS features enabled such as Intel VMD or Intel Rapid Storage? Have you tried isolating a specific M.2 slot that might be the culprit? It appears that model has two PCIex4 slots and it’s unclear if they share a controller.
A bit more digging might reveal a workaround or simple fix. Best of luck!
I tried disabling Intel VMD but that didn’t seem to help with drive compatibility. My BIOS doesn’t seem to mention Rapid Storage.
From what I understand in the errors messages and the only constant in the unwritable drives is that they are encrypted. Only the Drive with Windows and no Bitlocker was able to get Qubes OS installed onto. I just installed Qubes OS onto it, later today I’ll text it and if it works, then I’ll try installing an unencrypted distro on the other drives and see if Qubes OS can install onto them then.
Will also be submitting the HCL report for this machine hopefully by the end of Wednesday!
It turns out that Qubes OS won’t boot from that one drive that it seemed to be able to install onto (which requires skipping the check or else it would return an error). This is the final screen that I managed to reach after 3 bootup attempts on the SSD.
I installed Qubes OS using the “kernel-latest” option. Once I signed into Qubes OS, I began getting it set up but every 3 - 15 minutes (it seems to be at random intervals), the XFCE panel disappears / crashes. Hovering the cursor at the top does not bring back the panel and only the cursor and whichever windows I still had open remain responsive. I created a shortcut (press the Super key to open the app menu) but once the XFCE panel crashes, this shortcut no longer opens the menu. This has happened consistently about 7 times now (every time that I use the system for more than a few minutes).
Here is an example of what I mean. Since this is a different issue than installation (the title), I will start a new post.
