Hey everyone! I just got a new PC with an MSI motherboard and I'm having a tough time installing any Linux distro. I first tried POP OS and then switched to Omarchy, but they wouldn't show up on the bootloader. I tried creating it manually, but that didn't work either. Next, I attempted Linux Mint, which did show up but led me to a minimal GRUB prompt where I couldn't find the filesystem—it showed as unknown when I used the LS command. I even tried a different SSD (an NVMe this time) where I managed to install it, but then it got stuck on the Linux Mint logo and reported that it couldn't read the SSD blocks. I really need Linux up and running since programming on Windows isn't working for me. Any suggestions?
4 Answers
Could you provide the exact error message you see when it says it can't read the SSD blocks? That might give us more insight into what’s going wrong.
You might want to disable TPM and Secure Boot in your BIOS. Some motherboards can be finicky with Linux booting because they are optimized for Windows. I haven’t heard of this being an issue with MSI yet, but it could help!
Just a heads up, I don’t think you need to disable TPM at all for Linux to work.
MSI boards can be a bit tricky, especially laptops. I've faced similar issues where it defaults to look for Windows even if it's not there, forcing me into an EFI shell. What works for me is hitting F11 at boot to access the boot menu each time and making sure that UEFI, AHCI, TPM, and Secure Boot are all disabled.
I recommend checking out some installation tips online. It's also beneficial to connect to the internet with an ethernet cable during installation. And don’t forget to remove the boot media after the install is complete—definitely a common oversight!
What do you mean by TPM? I found something labeled "fTPM 2.0" in my BIOS. Is that what you're talking about?