Grub install fails when writing to NVRAM on Apollo Lake Tablet PC

[Joey van Hummel]

When installing ubuntu 18.10 on my tablet-PC, the grub installer causes kernel messages to appear and then hangs indefinitely. I've done some research and found that Grub apparently doesn't play well with Apollo Lake based (tablet) PC's, but can't find a bug report on here.

I've used the "sudo ubuntu-bug -w" command to report this bug. I realise this is probably not a lot to go on, but I'm not afraid to get a little hands-on and do more investigative work per your instructions / suggestions.

As a sidenote, I also tried installing Elementary OS, which runs into the same issue but at least reports that there was an issue. Ubiquity on 18.10 simply hangs flat out. The UI is still responsive, but the install process will have stalled.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.10
Package: ubiquity 18.10.12
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.18.0-10.11-generic 4.18.12
Uname: Linux 4.18.0-10-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.10-0ubuntu13
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.399
Date: Fri Nov 9 18:55:25 2018
ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper quiet splash ---
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python3.6
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 18.10 "Cosmic Cuttlefish" - Release amd64 (20181017.3)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=unknown
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=C.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
Python3Details: /usr/bin/python3.6, Python 3.6.7rc1, python3-minimal, 3.6.6-1
PythonDetails: N/A
SourcePackage: grub-installer
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Joey van Hummel (jvhummel)]

Just tried 20.04 and the behaviour has improved, but the core problem remains.
Now, at least the installer recognizes the issue and exits gracefully, but grub still fails to install.

[Joey van Hummel (jvhummel)]

I've done more extensive testing and it seems that when installing grub with the --no-nvram option, all goes well. Setting EFI vars is what mucks up.