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This sounds like it was strictly the fault of the USB load. If you make a UEFI USB (you should use Ventoy, it's great btw) all you would need to do is shut off Secure Boot and install.
Most bootable drives don't support Secure Boot. You turn it off, do the install, and turn it back on if you want it. I personally just leave it off.
Outside of those caveats everything you described is industry-standard stuff. Nothing to do with Lenovo.
That's surprising, Thinkpad x240 owner here. With all the os i installed on it i never had to do such overcomplicated manipulation, just bios entering + boot on usb.
Maybe it's just a 460 thing?
I totally agree. I am an IT Profe and it's still very irritating to have to jump through these hoops. Plus each manufacturer has a different key you need to press to access the bios. Sometimes the same OEM will have different keys on different models.
So you try the normal ones which don't work and then have to Google the model number to try find out which key to hold.
Frustrating and time consuming. And definitely makes it very difficult for the average user to install Linux.
I sometimes think Microsoft did it on purpose to hinder Linux installs and then disguised it as "security".
It's not really "security" if you can turn it off is it?
That sounds extremely infuriating! Regarding Lenovo and Linux Mint, I actually had a very good experience with them a little over a year ago. I bought a new IdeaCentre 5i pre-built desktop tower and had zero issues installing Mint on it. All I had to do was press F12 and select to boot from the bootable USB to install, no screwing with the BIOS or anything. But I've never tried installing Linux on a laptop. I only use desktops.
It was so stupid. F12 should have been all it took, but it didn't even recognize the USB drive existed.
You probably should use uefi as it is better in a lot of ways.
…what?
It tends to be more reliable and is easier to work with
Yeah, okay, but what has that got to do with the price of fish? I think you’re misunderstanding the post entirely:
When OP mentions going into the “BIOS” they’re using the term as the common name for the device settings menu that you can enter on boot. It is however a UEFI-based device. What OP had to change was the “Boot Mode” from UEFI Mode to Legacy (or BIOS) mode. This affects how the UEFI looks for Operating Systems to boot, forcing it to search for Master Boot Records rather than EFI partitions, and booting those in a compatibility mode. This seems to be a bug with Lenovo’s implementation of UEFI, as it did not detect the Linux Mint Live USB’s UEFI partition. Most Live USB’s are still set up with a backup BIOS bootloader. OP then had to go back into their “BIOS” (UEFI) and re-enable UEFI boot mode to be able to boot into their newly installed Linux Mint partition.
What I’m struggling to understand is why you gave the advice “you should use UEFI” when OP was already using a UEFI-based system…
Well done. It’s a Lenovo issue. Had to do the same thing recently for a friends laptop and did the same dance.
I have some IT background so kind of knew what to look for but it still was a pita.
It's just so stupid. Obviously other notebooks don't have this issue. Some people are blaming Mint for not doing anything about it, but I'm still blaming Lenovo mostly.
UEFI looks like another over-complicated proprietary shit that make PC more and more locked.
It is not
Pretty much from what I can tell.
As someone who also installed Mint on a Lenovo, I feel your pain. The only difference is that I was aware of the BIOS setting before I did the install because I'd read some forum posts preparing myself for the install.
Thanks for the update <thumbs_up>
I had to go into the BIOS, turn UEFI to legacy, turn off secure boot, reboot to boot from the USB stick, install Mint, then turn legacy back to UEFI to get it to boot from the hard drive.
That is ridiculous and it does sound like a Lenovo problem.
I'm running Mint on a Surface Laptop (which was difficult to install because Microsoft), but getting Secure Boot working only required changing the UEFI settings to allow non-Microsoft Secure Boot certificates. With that set Mint boots just fine both with Secure Boot enabled and disabled. So do USB installation ISOs.
Secure Boot can still be a pain. To get Virtualbox working with it enabled required signing several kernel modules which took a while to figure out.
Mint is great though. After distrohopping for years I finally decided I wanted to just use the OS and GUI, not play around with them and I came back to Mint. The latest versions of Mint just work and work for years once they're installed. For me, going back to Windows (especially W11) feels like punishment. I hope you enjoy the switch.
Use KVM I stead of Virtual box. It is way faster
I use a W10 VM for processing individual files once a week or so. With the required 2 Windows programs it takes about 3 minutes to complete the task and shut down the OS. Not worth switching.
Virtual manager with make it run so much faster though. Also its not a bad idea to have a few VMs just for fun anyway
Admittedly, I've only been able to play with it on and off today, but I am really liking it so far (except Firefox, which apparently no longer has a compact mode). I've had to use Macs for years for work reasons, but I don't have to anymore and I said to myself that when my ancient Macbook died, I would replace it with something that runs Linux. MacOS is okay, not terrific (I hate how much RAM it uses though). I don't mind using it, but I am not going to pay Apple's prices now that I don't have to just because it's less annoying than Windows. So Linux is the perfect answer!
MacOS is okay, not terrific (I hate how much RAM it uses though).
On that note, I've been amazed how well Mint works with just 8GB of memory. I've had Firefox and Chrome running with plenty of open tabs, Thunderbird, Libreoffice Calc, and a half dozen other programs open while running W10 in Virtualbox. Mint just takes it in stride.
I recently installed it on a t480 while distrohopping. I didn't need to turn off uefi, secure boot has been off since i got this laptop and i never turned it back on. My best guess is that you either did something wrong when making the live media, or during the installation. Next time try using ventoy, it's a really useful tool.
I'll try Ventoy next time, thanks. I just followed the install instructions on Mint's website which says to use Etcher. Maybe that's the problem.
Also, did you manually edit your partitions? It might be related to your bootloader being in /boot instead of /boot/efi. The first one's for legacy bios, and the second is for uefi.
Nope, I didn't do that either.
That's what you get when you buy Lenovo. It can't even run Windows properly most of the time how did you expect it to run Linux?
Seriously if you go into any large company and ask why they don't use Lenovo they'll simply tell you that the failure rate of those machines is way to high to be worth it. Like order 50 and only 10 are in working condition after 2 years... or a simple USB 3 cable running along the computer will make it slow because there isn't enough shielding on the machine and the high frequency of those cables interferes with your storage controller / NVMe.
how did you expect it to run Linux?
Because I asked in this community and got a bunch of people who said they ran Linux on it and it worked just fine? Which it does now that it's been installed.
Hardware recommendations are really hard, brands to a lot of shit and there are a LOT of small details that make it so a small revision on the same model can make or break compatibility with any OS... even worse for Linux. Windows has tons of specifics hacks to work on specific hardware and they aren't pretty.
For me, personally I always got the best result with HP EliteBooks from 2 or 3 generations bellow the current one and the latest Debian. But again, that's just personal experience, nobody can guarantee you that you won't pick a very specific EliteBook with some awkward detail and things will fail.
I'm surprised HP notebooks are trustworthy at this point.
Depends on the line... the high end enterprise products (EliteBooks) are very solid and good, they also provide very good servicing, every piece of those machines is replaceable even screws have serial numbers and can be ordered from HP.
ProBooks are a mixed batch, some are decent others are total garbage. Consumer grade HP mostly follows the same trend, if you go for machines that are "Apple-priced" they're good, otherwise crap. Still not as crap as Lenovo became after China.
I doubt I'd be able to afford one of those. I got this because it was $200 refurbished.
Wow what a ride. Congrats on making it work, I'm not sure if I wouldn't have given up at some point. Great job!
About kissing M$'s ass, don't get me started on updating the BIOS on a HP Laptop, they require you to do that in Windows cause it's the only way to get their downloader to run. So it's not only Lenovo's Laptops that don't play nice with Linux.
I didn't even want to take a chance with an HP considering how fucked up their printers are.
I have HP Zbook, Linux works fine. There is a BIOS bug that linux boot acknowledges and moves forward with...just an annoying few intial mesaages during bootup
You should have been able to boot from USB and install fully in UEFI mode with Secure Boot enabled, but sometimes the method you use to make the bootable USB can screw that up. I've always had good luck with Ventoy.