[Installation] Installing on Razer Blade Pro Laptop (NVIDIA)

[elfin8er]

Hello, I am trying to dual boot Kubuntu 22.04.4 LTS and Windows 11. I got through the installation process, but now when I try booting into Kubuntu, I get some errors and am put into "emergency mode". I'm fairly new to Linux and especially desktop environments.

inxi: https://pastebin.com/GhM82dZN
journalctl -xb: https://pastebin.com/C6i3Ut55

Please let me know if there's anything else that I can provide.

I also don't have any internet access because when I run `netplan apply`, my system appears to go through some kind of reboot and never seems to apply my plan. This makes it a little difficult for me to find and install packages.

Thanks in advanced!

[Schwarzer Kater]

Welcome.

I roughly skimmed your journalctl output - there are errors like
fsck failed
and
A start job for unit home.mount has failed

First check if your file systems' type is the "right" one (e.g. ext4 for Linux / or /home and NTFS for Windows 11) and then check the integrity of your file systems.

If it is OK/you have repaired it, check the UUID entries in your /etc/fstab and compare them with the output of lsblk -f -e7 .
You should find the UUIDs from lsblk -f -e7 for e.g. / or a separate /home or /swap partition in your /etc/fstab, otherwise you will have problems booting.
If not, modify your /etc/fstab accordingly (for example with vi or nano) and reboot.

Feel free to post the output of lsblk -f -e7 and of your /etc/fstab here if need be (please use CODE tags).

[Snowhog]

The other thing to check if Fast Startup is enabled in Windows. Disable it if it is.

[elfin8er]

Thank you for the responses!

Welcome.

I roughly skimmed your journalctl output - there are errors like
fsck failed
and
A start job for unit home.mount has failed

First check if your file systems' type is the "right" one (e.g. ext4 for Linux / or /home and NTFS for Windows 11) and then check the integrity of your file systems.

If it is OK/you have repaired it, check the UUID entries in your /etc/fstab and compare them with the output of lsblk -f -e7 .
You should find the UUIDs from lsblk -f -e7 for e.g. / or a separate /home or /swap partition in your /etc/fstab, otherwise you will have problems booting.
If not, modify your /etc/fstab accordingly (for example with vi or nano) and reboot.

Feel free to post the output of lsblk -f -e7 and of your /etc/fstab here if need be (please use CODE tags).

I believe the file systems' type is correct. I also checked the UUIDs, and they look correct as well. The only one I'm not sure of is /boot/efi.

lsblk

NAME        FSTYPE FSVER LABEL        UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
nvme0n1                                                                                  
├─nvme0n1p1                                                                              
└─nvme0n1p2 ntfs         Data         6C86AF8E86AF56FC                                    
nvme1n1                                                                                  
├─nvme1n1p1 ntfs         Recovery     2886241D8623EA50                                    
├─nvme1n1p2 vfat   FAT32 SYSTEM       1826-11FA                              44.7M    53% /boot/efi
├─nvme1n1p3                                                                              
├─nvme1n1p4 ntfs         Blade 15 SSD E03226AB3226871E                                    
├─nvme1n1p5 ntfs         Winre        22FE276EFE273A05                                    
├─nvme1n1p6 vfat   FAT32 EFI          E387-3961                                          
├─nvme1n1p7 ext4   1.0                2eee2c4f-14ad-4e18-892a-284559e90766                
├─nvme1n1p8 ext4   1.0                5a992a10-0189-446f-9ed1-a86731ed5de5   24.9G    31% /
└─nvme1n1p9 swap   1                  e1171c78-2977-48d3-ac2b-3cd579f9600a                [SWAP]

fstab

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/nvme0n1p8 during installation
UUID=5a992a10-0189-446f-9ed1-a86731ed5de5 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/nvme0n1p2 during installation
UUID=1826-11FA  /boot/efi       vfat    umask=0077      0       1
# /home was on /dev/nvme0n1p7 during installation
UUID=2eee2c4f-14ad-4e18-892a-284559e90766 /home           ext4    defaults        0       2
# swap was on /dev/nvme0n1p9 during installation
UUID=e1171c78-2977-48d3-ac2b-3cd579f9600a none            swap    sw              0       0
​

To check the filesystem integrity, I booted into a live cd and ran

 fsck /dev/nvme0n1

and

fsck /dev/nvme1n1

and both times received the following:

ext2fs_open2: Bad magic number in super-block
fsck.ext2: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks...
fsck.ext2: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/nvme0n1

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a valid ext2/ext3/ext4
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2/ext3/ext4
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
  e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
or
  e2fsck -b 32768 <device>

I also noticed that when I went into Windows, it did its own filesystem checks before booting into Windows. Kubuntu still does not appear to work after this check though.

Snowhog (not sure why it won't let me quote you as well)

I tried checking for Fast Startup in Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do but I don't have an option for Fast Startup, only Sleep and Lock.

[Schwarzer Kater]

IMHO one should check individual partitions with fsck first, not whole drives (more reliable/easier to handle).
Also check unmounted (Linux) partitions/devices and if there are errors try to repair them.
So for example fsck -V /dev/nvme1n1p7 - also see man fsck .

BTW: to have two EFI partition (or more) on one drive is not the best idea, because although the specifications don't explicitely forbid it, AFAIK it is not explicitely allowed either.
And therefore some manufacturers' UEFI/BIOS may take account of more than one EFI partition on one drive and some may not (there were real world examples in the paper I read, but I can't find the link anymore)…

That said: according to the output of lsblk your EFI partition could be nvme1n1p6 and therefore I suggest to possibly use its UUID in /etc/fstab for a test and try again (if the labels are correct…).
But best mount both nvme1n1p2 and nvme1n1p6 before and check first what actually is installed on them…

[elfin8er]

I had to run

fsck -V /dev/nvme0n1p7

(my home directory now) which output the following:

[/usr/sbin/fsck.ext4 (1) -- /dev/nvme0n1p7] fsck.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p7
e2fsck 1.46.5 (30-Dec-2021)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 has unsupported feature(s): FEATURE_C12
e2fsck: Get a newer version of e2fsck!

/dev/nvme0n1p7cd

I think I fixed it though. I was able to mount nvme0n1p7 with the live cd. I noticed there was already a folder created with my username, and that's when I realized that this must be from previous distro testing. I copied everything important out of the folder, deleted it, and created a new folder. I then set myself as the owner and set permissions to 755. That seems to have done the trick and allowed me to boot successfully!

Edit: Hmm. Maybe not. When I eventually rebooted, I went back into Recovery Mode. Continuing to troubleshoot.

[Schwarzer Kater]

If you don't have valuable data in your Kubuntu installation, may I suggest to - if possible - completely delete partitions nvme1n1p6 to nvme1n1p9, move your data from nvme0n1p2 to a newly created nvme1n1p6 with NTFS and use the whole nvme0n1 for Kubuntu ?
This might be better in the long run and shorten the process of finding your boot problems.

To do this create a new GPT partition table on nvme0n1

Warning: (you will lose all your data on nvme0n1 during this process, so make sure nvme0n1p2 has been completely copied to the new nvme1n1p6 before and is verified)

and use it to have completely seperate drives for Kubuntu and Windows :

1. new nvme0n1p1 (Fat32) for /boot/efi (size: 320 MB -> not less than 300…)
2. new nvme0n1p2 (ext4) for / (size heavily depends on e.g. if it contains /var when using Snaps and Flatpaks…)
3. new nvme0n1p3 (ext4) for /home (if you prefer to have it seperate…)
4. new nvme0n1p4 (linux swap) for /swap (or use a swap file on e.g. / instead)

After the fresh installation of Kubuntu to nvme0n1 you should check if the new nvme0n1p1 for /boot/efi really is correctly mounted in /etc/fstab (the installer sometimes wrongly uses another EFI partition if present…).

It not:

• change efi's UUID in your /etc/fstab to the new nvme0n1p1
• delete the /EFI/ubuntu/ from the wrongly used EFI partition and afterwards umount the wrong /boot/efi
• mount nvme0n1p1 to /boot/efi
• check that the line GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false is present in your /etc/default/grub, if you want to be able to boot Windows too from the GRUB boot menu.
• sudo update-grub and newly sudo grub-install to it

Finally set your UEFI/BIOS to boot from nvme0n1/the new nvme0n1p1.