[SOLVED] Installed 22.04 on a new-ish system

[Qqmike]

Finally got around to replacing my 20.04 with 22.04.
Just a few notes. I did encounter a strange BIOS glitch. And there is a question here about formatting the ESP DURING installation.


Motherboard, ASUS Prime Z590-P

I used dd to make the live USB Kubuntu. (See how-to Note below.)

Problem: Testing the USB: PC wouldn't re-boot from USB.

Strange deal! First time seeing this. For the UEFI-BIOS on the Motherboard, ASUS Prime Z590-P:
Upon re-booting with the live USB Kubuntu ... UEFI-BIOS showed no option for a USB boot override.
After much re-trying, I changed a setting in UEFI/BIOS and then the PC would re-boot into the UEFI USB live Kubuntu.
BIOS settings: AS usual turn off Secure Boot and Fast Boot. But there was a weird feature of the Secure Boot option -->
For my ASUS motherboard Prime Z590-P, the relevant UEFI-BIOS settings are Advanced > Boot > Secure Boot
Then: under Secure Boot, set the OS Type to Other (versus Windows UEFI Mode).
Then: Secure Boot Mode is set to Custom. (The other choice is Standard.)
Problem Fixed: I changed it to Standard.
Then upon re-booting, the USB UEFI showed up as a boot override option and the PC booted by the USB into a live Kubuntu session.
Lesson learned: I have always known this: You gotta learn to read your UEFI BIOS and know its nuances. It is not always written in clear understandable language! Sometimes trial-and-error is the only real choice (and could be risky in some cases). And this is true for me, even though I stick with ASUS mobo's and UEFI-BIOS.


Problem: I had problems getting my live Kubuntu OS to recognize the DSL Internet.
In the live USB Kubuntu session: I unplugged the Ethernet cable from the PC to the modem, after 10 seconds plugged it back in, and it worked OK.


Problem: Installing Kubuntu, I could not reformat my existing ESP in the live session using the Manual method.

The drive: Samsung 870 EVO 500GB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD
Had these partitions for my 20.04:
sda1 ESP, fat32
sda2 /, ext4
sda3 /home, ext 4
sda4 linux-swap

Installation method: I chose Manual.

I wanted to use those same partitions for 22.04, simply re-formatting them. But in the Partition section of the installation, I could not reformat the ESP. I suppose that is a safety feature of the installer. Out of chicken-superstition, I wanted to reformat my ESP just to be sure that it was clean for the new 22.04.
I tried the KDE Partition Manager in the live Kubuntu session, but it would not allow a re-format of that ESP.
Nor did Muon (or Discover) offer gparted for installation in the live session.
Finally, I backed out of the live session, booted into my 20.04, and reformatted the ESP (fat32) using gparted.
Note: I did inspect the contents of my USB and could see the EFI folders and files; so I knew the USB was set up for UEFI.
Question: Am I missing something here?


Installation options chosen: ALL of them!

I thought I would mention that I chose all options to be installed:
-- d/l updates during installation
-- install 3rd-party software

I am aware that it is often advised against doing this, but I was curious to see how it would go, as kind of an experiment.
Installation was FAST. I didn’t time it, but it was on the order of 10 minutes or so, total time (NOT counting my little re-formatting detour on the ESP mentioned above).
After installation and re-booting into the installed 22.04, I had around 750 MB of updates, no problems.


Other notes: No problems at all configuring and importing my data into Firefox and Thunderbird. Real smooth, no glitches.


Conclusion, to my surprise:
This entire deal could be done in 30-45 minutes, including making the live USB (using dd), and including setting up and importing data to Firefox and Thunderbird, and a few other quick tweaks.


How-to note:
Building a Kubuntu live USB flash drive installer using dd
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/forum/...e10#post544663
dd: Showing the progress as dd executes
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/forum/general/documentation/how-to-s/20902-the-dd-command/page2#post565472

[jlittle]

(I presume you're inviting comment... in that spirit...)

You gotta learn to read your UEFI BIOS and know its nuances. It is not always written in clear understandable language! Sometimes trial-and-error is the only real choice (and could be risky in some cases). And this is true for me, even though I stick with ASUS mobo's .

("UEFI BIOS" is a contradictory and thus confusing term IMO, especially in the context of booting from an installer USB. "Firmware" is generic, but few use it. It can be crucial to understand that it's UEFI or BIOS or UEFI in BIOS compatibility mode.)

Installing Kubuntu, I could not reformat my existing ESP in the live session using the Manual method...

The ESP is just an ordinary FAT32 (aka vfat, I think) partition. IMO if you delete all the files on it, it's clean. If you want an absolutely clean install, you can use dd to write zeroes to the device, but care is needed with such a blunt instrument. Writing a new partition table is pretty clean too.

I tried the KDE Partition Manager in the live Kubuntu session, but it would not allow a re-format of that ESP

I don't understand that. Maybe, as you suggest, a safety feature.

This entire deal could be done in 30-45 minutes, including making the live USB (using dd)

Using Ventoy, where you have a trusty USB and just copy the iso to it, or even download straight to it, saves time.

[Qqmike]

I have never been comfortable with the terminology UEFI-BIOS that ASUS uses. But I see why they do that -- legacy recognition that it goes in the "BIOS," the firmware of the machine.

I don't understand why the installer or the live session would not allow me to reformat the ESP as fat32. I * could have deleted * the old ESP and then re-created it from scratch, but just didn't want to do that at that time -- chicken superstition. I just didn't want any 'scraps' from my previous ESP to be hanging around, especially with the standard terminology for "ubuntu" for the boot loaders used by all Ubuntu's

My How-to is still around here:
The dd Command
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/forum/...the-dd-command

I think it is still the most complete, basic how-to on the Internet.

[Schwarzer Kater]

[…]
I don't understand why the installer or the live session would not allow me to reformat the ESP as fat32.

I * could have deleted * the old ESP and then re-created it from scratch, but just didn't want to do that at that time -- chicken superstition.
[…]

Nor do I - but I usually use a bootable USB stick with GParted Live to prepare the internal media for the various installations (https://gparted.org/livecd.php) - before booting with a distribution's installation USB stick.

Why not? When you have created a new partition table a new EFI partition is created for /boot/efi by the (automatic) installer anyway. If you do this manually you can at least choose the size of the EFI partition (I normally let it have 320 MiB).

[Qqmike]

Nor do I - but I usually use a bootable USB stick with GParted Live to prepare the internal media for the various installations (https://gparted.org/livecd.php) - before booting with a distribution's installation USB stick.

Exactly so, me, too. However, some time ago (too lazy to look up the details), I and another user here had difficulty making a live gparted USB, it turned out to be some bug, we were using dd to do it. So, I resorted to other methods, like using a live Kubuntu USB and KDE Partition Manager. I just checked and do have a live UEFI gparted USB here at my desk, but old, I'm sure. I will check into this again when i have time. Thanks.