Comment 99 for bug 1040557

Steve, I am trying to decide whether I should attempt installing Ubuntu on my Samsung NP700Z5A (and of course risk bricking the laptop in the process) through the route of CMS boot + Colin King's patch, meaning the route you proposed, or through the Secure Boot route.

I thought I should try to collect as much information as possible *before* attempting the installation, for obvious reasons. Here is what I have observed so far while experimenting with booting Ubuntu Live CD 12.10 x86_64.

1. Turning off Secure Boot and setting the boot mode to plain CMS results into the 'samsung-laptop' kernel module being loaded:

     ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ lsmod | grep -i samsung
     samsung_laptop 14532 0
     video 19335 3 samsung_laptop,nouveau,i915

2. With Secure Boot on, I get a few lines of messages for a split-second before "Try Ubuntu without installing" appears. There is something about "... forbids loading module ..." in the messages but it's almost impossible to make out what these messages are. Okay, when the "Try Ubuntu" item shows up I can enter Grub command line mode and that's where I get something that looks quite similar to what flashes on the screen a few moments before. Here is a sample of what I get:

     grub> ls
     error: Secure Boot forbids loading module from (cd0)/boot/grub/x86_64-efi/ls.mod
     grub> list_env
     error: file `/boot/grub/grubenv' not found
     grub> help
     error: Secure Boot forbids loading module from (cd0)/boot/grub/x86_64-efi/help.mod

lsmod in Grub command line produces a long list of modules loaded; linuxefi is one of them. There is no 'grep' or 'more' or 'less' in Grub command line and obviously I can't scroll up to see the full list. I wish there were some kind of a log file with error messages to examine. I did not see 'samsung-laptop' in the list of loaded modules, but I think it's reasonable to assume that it is not loaded because it's not there when the system completes booting in the Secure Boot mode.

Proceeding with "Try Ubuntu without installing" normally brings up the GUI without a hitch. Although I did experience a complete freeze once during boot-up at the point of the word Ubuntu with flashing dots below. I thought the RMA time has arrived! After long-pressing the Power button to power off and then pressing Power again the system luckily came back alive (so far at least).

So, is the Secure Boot a good thing or a bad thing? samsung-laptop is obviously not loaded under the Secure Boot. It looks like Grub x86_64-efi modules are also not loaded, but linuxefi is loaded.

I am thinking of attempting an installation with the --no-bootloader option first to see if the installation process can complete without bricking the laptop. If the installation completes successfully, then I think the bootloader installation process becomes the main suspect. But before I get there... should I try installation in the CMS Mode + Colin King's patch, or in the Secure Boot mode?