GRUB2 can't boot Linux on HP Dragonfly G2

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Hello!

On HP Dragonfly G2 GRUB2 can not boot Linux. This issue is not reproducible with rEFInd or Fedora's GRUB2 (that launch vmlinuz as efi executable) but reproducible with Ubuntu 20.04.1, 21.04 and 21.10.

After selection kernel in GRUB2 list there is just black screen, also reading from flash stop right there (judging by led on flash drive). Removing quiet splash, adding loglevel=10 and/or earlycon=efifb doesn't change anything, so it's really seems like kernel can not even start boot process.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 21.10
Package: grub-efi-amd64-bin 2.04-1ubuntu45
Uname: Linux 5.13.8-051308-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu67
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Sat Aug 7 04:18:17 2021
InstallationDate: Installed on 2021-07-11 (25 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20200731)
SourcePackage: grub2-unsigned
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Nicholas Stommel (nstommel)]

This issue affects me as well on the HP Elite Dragonfly G2. It's really awful, I can't even start the boot process on a Ubuntu live installer. It doesn't seem to matter how I format the USB drive either. I have Fedora 34 installed but I cannot boot Ubuntu 20.04, 20.10, 21.04, or 21.10 at all. When selecting an entry with GRUB on a Ubuntu live key, I just get a black screen with a blinking white cursor at the top. What could be the problem? I regret buying this machine immensely, it has issues already with charging and wifi. It seems that the firmware won't allow us to boot Ubuntu or Debian or really any non-Fedora/RHEL distribution. On Parted Magic, I get an "out of memory" error immediately and cannot boot the image. I think this is also what is happening with the Ubuntu live image. Is the firmware reporting available memory incorrectly when attempting to boot or blocking initramfs over a certain size? Is it possible to fix this? Honestly I'm so upset at HP for introducing firmware bugs like this. No one in their right mind would design system firmware like this to prevent the booting of Linux.

[Nicholas Stommel (nstommel)]

Okay wait a minute, it IS possible to install Ubuntu by writing the ISO to the bootable key with dd from a machine running Linux. I used dd like so: `sudo dd bs=4M if=/home/noctua/Downloads/ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdb conv=fdatasync status=progress` and I was amazed that Ubuntu actually booted. It took some time to boot, but I was able to use the installer successfully and I can confirm Ubuntu 21.10 works fine on the Elite Dragonfly G2 (disable PSR using i915.enable_psr=0 in the GRUB config kernel boot parameters after installation to eliminate screen tear and lag). Definitely try doing that. It seems like the HP system firmware has a flaw with being unable to boot certain things. Given that the Fedora USB creator writes the raw ISO to the key, this might be why a Fedora USB key works. I still think this is a flaw that needs to be fixed, but at least there is a workaround.