Post-installation Issue With Dell Pro 14

Hi @Zulama

Does your laptop use only the Intel Arc graphics ? I see “Intel Core i7 Ultra 268V” has it included.

I just had a problem with Intel Arc and the 4.3.0 installer:

  • The installer uses Xe driver for the graphics during the first part of installation, until the first reboot.
  • …but it does not copy the firmware to the new installation on the disk, so I was getting black screen.

I found a work-around for the 4.3.0 installer, I think. (TLDR - copy the xe firmware to the target just after the installation begins) :

  1. Boot the installation media, and select the Install kernel latest.

  2. Prepare the keyboard layout, disk destination, user name.

  3. After pressing the button to begin installation, watch the screen for the creation of the luks partition and the lvm partitions (it is only a minute or two).

  4. Press Ctrl-Alt-F2 to find a text terminal (maybe it is Ctrl-Alt-F3?). There is a prompt that looks like this:
    [anaconda root@localhost /]

  5. Change to the root directory cd /

  6. Verify that the “xe” firmware is present: ls usr/lib/firmware/xe - you should see several files inside the directory. (bmg_guc_70… and some more)

  7. Wait until the initial directory structure is created on the target. Type :
    ls /mnt/sysroot/
    You should see some directories inside. (Use the UP arrow, and press Enter to try again, until you see the directories created.

  8. copy the directory to the target disk:

    cp --parents -r /usr/lib/firmware/xe /mnt/sysroot/

  9. Go back to the graphical installation Ctrl-Alt-F6, and wait for it to finish.

  10. Reboot, and hope to see some GUI.

At least on my current computer, this was enough to integrate some initial Xe firmware, to avoid the black screen. I am still testing, but I am very hopeful…

Let us know if you succeed, or if you don’t!

I think that the problem has already been addressed for the future: issue #10523

I guess it will also be fixed in the next installer version.