Installation freeze at GRUB2 on Acer TravelMate Spin B1 B118-RN-P7XQ

Solution 1:

Almost 4 years later, I checked if Acer had released a BIOS-update. That was the case (I had 1.05 which was the latest at that time, the current version is 1.28 from 2018). With the updated BIOS no more errors occur.

The workaround by LiveWireBT did its job in the meantime though.

Small note in case anyone has the same problem: since I'm using Ubuntu I don't have Windows installed on that machine, but the BIOS update is an .exe file. It was sufficient to create a bootable install USB-stick for Windows 10, copy the .exe file onto it, boot from it, go to repair options, commandline, and execute the .exe file. Make sure that you have a drive installed and the power plugged in, otherwise the program will refuse to update the BIOS. I guess that is a simpler/ approach than trying something with WINE.

Solution 2:

If just installing the grub package proves to be the issue and you can remove the drive to put it in another computer, then do just that and install Ubuntu there. Make yourself familiar with working around missing UEFI NVRAM entries, there are several ways to approach this, and you should have a bootable system when you mount the drive again. If the storage is just one (or more) soldered chips to the mainboard then you would need another drive to install on another computer, boot up a live disk on the target computer configure the partition table, copy all the contents of root and the EFI system partition with sudo rsync -av and configure /etc/fstab for the correct UUIDs. Some people would prefer some disk dump/clone but I prefer this one. With UEFI you wouldn't even need to call grub for modifications to the MBR if the proves to be the part where it crashes.

That would solve your problem by thinking outside the box. ;) Investigating the problem further would be a good idea. Endless OS is based on Debian if I recall correctly, it's not strange, it's actually very nice and has some advantages (no bad or stuck updates, steam via flatpak). It's worth a second look, don't write it off just because it's made for non-tech savvy people.