Spent multiple days and I still cant get Zorin to work

Installing Zorin OS
1

I installed Zorin OS Educational and everything was wonderful

Everything installed. I was able to use it. Was perfect.

So I thought. Till I turned off my laptop and turned it back on and now after I type in my encrypted disk password, it's just a black screen.... forever... and now its a brick.

My laptop is HP Elitebook 8770w Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3820QM CPU @ 2.70GHz 2.70 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB
Storage 932 GB HDD HGST HTS721010A9E630, 932 GB SSD WDC WDBNCE0010PNC
Graphics Card AMD FirePro M4000 (1003 MB)

It works when booting from a USB.
I am not dual booting. I overwrite Windows 10.

i foolishly overwrite windows. I tried installing without the disk encryption... same thing... same error.

I don't get why it works perfectly from the USB stick, but when installs, it just.... dies...

I have been really hoping to get this to work because out of all the Linux distros I like Zorin the most. It's been mentally devastating for me. Like. I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday trying everything. Various AI have given me various codes to try to type into the GRUB and none of those seem to work. I don't have a ton of time during the week. But if there is any hope. I'll try throughout the week and spend yet another weekend trying before I give up... I could probably copy paste my AI chat here or somewhere for people to read if they want to see me talk back and forth with the AI and run its suggestions.

A couple of them noted that my AMD Firepro might be the thing causing the black screen issues as Zorin tries to use the graphics card, but there aren't drivers for it, so it just goes black. It thinks this because the USB drive Zorin works.

Like maybe there is a way to just make zorin skip using the graphics card for a display? Or. Maybe the devs could work on a fix? Idk. I was going to install Zorin edu for all my laptops so my kids could use zorin's educational functions. I really liked that part.

I know this HP model should work for Linux because I have Mint installed in a nearly identical HP Elitebook 8770w. I have multiple of the same laptops with maybe slightly different specs like different hdd or graphics card.

So maybe hopefully there is something I can do.

2

Hi and welcome.

Take a look at some steps from different sources. I used Ubuntu 24.04 in my search criteria and found the following:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1512603/24-04-black-screen-with-amd

To resolve this, you must force the use of the legacy radeon driver and disable aggressive power states. Access the GRUB boot menu by pressing Shift or Esc during startup, select the Ubuntu line, and press e to edit. Append the following parameters to the line starting with linux :

radeon.si_support=1 amdgpu.si_support=0 nomodeset

If the system boots successfully with nomodeset , make this permanent by editing /etc/default/grub and changing:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash radeon.si_support=1 amdgpu.si_support=0"

Then run sudo update-grub and reboot. For some users, adding radeon.runpm=0 is also necessary to prevent the GPU from entering a broken low-power state. Note that while this restores display output, performance may be limited compared to newer GPUs, as the radeon driver is legacy software.

3

OK so i see you been trying to do the grub update..ok have ya tryed on startup hiting the esc key or shift to see a zorin screen that has an option for advanced options? then tryed booting in using a differnt kernel? maybe there was an update and when you shut down the computer at startup it took over and maybe it has a bug. Try getting into the boot grub screen advanced options and select a differnt kernel and see if that helps

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From my searches it is because it is an old AMD graphics driver that is dependent on radeon.

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I think I would try the change that @swarfendor437 suggested first and also go back and choose an earlier kernel, perhaps back to 6.8.

You could also try boot repair from your live USB, though if it worked before it is odd that it got "unrepaired". Did you have to edit anything in the start up menus to get the live USB to work? If so, may need to make the equivalent changes to the installed grub, followed by sudo update-grub.

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You could first test to boot with an older 6.17 kernel (this is the kernel which is preinstalled on a Zorin 18.1 live boot stick) from "Advanced options for Zorin" in grub-menu. When you select a kernel this way, it is only for the next boot and not permanently. But you can save an older kernel which you want to use permanently.

If that helps, stay with an older kernel.
I read that the kernel 7.0 (this kernel is installed by updates on Zorin and applied after reboot) makes black screens with this graphics card.

As your computer is an old device and kernel 6.17 is already out of support, I would recommend to use kernel 6.8 instead because it is a LTS kernel and will be supported for the next years.

You can install kernel 6.8 with

sudo apt install linux-generic linux-headers-generic

and then reboot and go to Advanced options for Zorin and select kernel 6.8 (not recovery kernel)

If you can not boot successful with an older kernel from grub menu, try to add the kernel parameter nomodeset first as Swarfendor has shown by pressing e in grub menu.

Here in this guide, post 2.

This thread is about the same device with ubuntu 26 and kernel 7.0:
They wrote that nomodeset or radeon.si_support=1 amdgpu.si_support=0 nomodeset helped, but adding nomodeset isn't a good permanent solution if you find other ways. So, test an older kernel first, because everything has worked with the boot stick and the older 6.17 kernel.

Linux Mint does not automatically update to kernel 7.0 like Zorin does. In Linux Mint, you must manually initiate kernel upgrades to a higher HWE kernel using the Kernel Upgrader tool, and e.g. by default, Linux Mint 22.1 uses the ga LTS kernel 6.8 which isn't preinstalled on Zorin 18.

This is beneficial for users of older hardware, as it helps avoid compatibility issues caused by new kernels.
If you prefer, you can also simply install kernel 6.8 and remove the HWE stack. This would have the advantage that you wouldn’t need to set a default kernel for booting (i.e., you could use the default GRUB configuration GRUB_DEFAULT=0), and after every kernel update, the latest 6.8 version would be used automatically on the next boot.
If you set a specific kernel as the default using saved, you’ll need to access Zorin’s advanced options again after every kernel update and select the new kernel.

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7

Welcome to the Forum!

Are Secure Boot and Fast Boot in BIOS disabled?

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"encrypted disk" worries me.
Was it encrypted when you had Windows?
Did you use Bitlocker in Windows and disable that before wiping Windows?
Also did you disable Fast Start-Up in Windows before wiping.
Have you also disabled Secure Boot, Fast Boot in BIOS.
See this pre-installation advice: Before you install

9

Hello and welcome,
you should try to boot in recovery mode and try to downgrade linux-firmware, because as I see you have AMD GPU you will have this problem.
when you will be in recovery so that:

sudo apt install linux-firmware=20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.26

then mark linux-firmware as hold

sudo apt-mark hold linux-firmware
apt-mark showhold #you should see linux-firmware in the list

the regenerate initramfs with the good firmware :

uname -r #your actual kernel should be the output
sudo update-initramfs -u -k 'the result of uname -r'
sudo reboot
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