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I have been trying to install GNU/Linux on a HP pavilion dv6 from 2011 and I can't get passed the "Welcome to grub! grub is loading" screen. This is the first time I have tried installing an operating system other than windows.

All tries have been with a bootable usb stick. I have tried manjaro, mint and Ubuntu distributions and all end up with the same issue. Both the mint and Ubuntu sticks where made using the unetbootin tool. The manjaro stick was made by a friend on his linux machine.

Worth noting is that the laptop implements the older BIOS version, not the UEFI version which has secure-boot. It might also be of interest that the laptop has the configurable-graphics feature which lets you chose if you want to use the integrated intel grphics or the discrete AMD graphics.

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  • Any old hybrid graphics Intel+AMD will be a pain to use with any modern Linux distro. And are you sure it has BIOS? I'm unaware of any notebook with hybrid graphics not being UEFI...
    – user252181
    Commented Apr 12, 2018 at 11:23
  • If i enter the BIOS setup i can see "BIOS version: F. 13" and "BIOS vendor insyde". I don't know if that answers the BIOS/UEFI question. Sad to hear about the pain of using linux on these laptops, i was hoping to use it as an entry for learning about GNU/Linux.
    – CareCat
    Commented Apr 12, 2018 at 11:33
  • Unfortunately many manufacturers still use "BIOS" terminology for what is UEFI, due to familiarity. And HP pavilion dv6 from 2011 says very little but it's a moot point anyway. You don't need to install a distro to test it, you can use a virtual machine with Virtualbox or VMWare installed in Windows. Otherwise you may keep trying to boot a live session and for that if the BIOS/UEFI allows selecting the graphics card then choose Intel and provided the USB was done correctly it should boot fine.
    – user252181
    Commented Apr 12, 2018 at 12:13

1 Answer 1

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I know this is old but I have been having similar issues with installing Linux one of these old HP Pavilion Dv6 laptops. Not sure this is a fix but more a workaround as I still haven't found the answer to solve the actual issue. I have found that certain distros work and others don't. Also some distro versions work other versions don't. I used rufus 4.1.2045 to write all of these to the same USB.

Not Working:

  • Fedora 36, 37, 38
  • Nobara 37 Official and Gnome
  • Garuda-gnome-linux-zen-230501
  • Ubuntu 22.04.2 (I tried gnome, dde, and kde flavors)

Working:

  • Fedora 30, 35
  • Ubuntu 20.04.6
  • UbuntuDDE 20.04.1
  • XeroLinux-2023.05-x86_64
  • NixOS Gnome 23.05.1272
  • LinuxMint 21.1 Cinnamon

Mint was the first I tried and installed it fully out of the box, I used it for a week doing simple things like browse, play chess with arena/stockfish as well as stream to a tv using the HDMI

Ubuntu was installed next. I was able to upgrade to the current build with no issues. Used it for the same tasks although I never hooked it up to tv via the HDMI.

I tired NixOS next and it was a fun experience. It felt snappy but didn't do much with it tbh.

I tried Fedora next but it was just not very responsive and was worse than Mint. I was able to upgrade to 38 without issues. Even after a few performance tweaks it was just slow on this dv6

Ubuntu DDE was only ran in a live environment but never installed. I was just wanting to test DDE and didn't want to install it to the fedora build I currently had installed.

I also tried but never installed XeroLinux. It was surprisingly fast, I was not expecting it to be that responsive. It was beautiful but wasn't for me.

I think I am going to go back to NixOS on this machine which has only an i3 and 4gb ram.

TL;DR Try older builds of the distro you want to use and then upgrade after installed. If anyone has an actual solution please let me know I was hoping to play around with Nobara on this machine.

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  • Update with current information until your answer reflects a total solution.
    – ixtmixilix
    Commented Jul 7, 2023 at 23:59
  • Not exactly sure what you mean can you please clarify?
    – GeeMonty
    Commented Jul 8, 2023 at 7:00
  • You said at the beginning of your answer that you still haven’t found the answer to solve the actual issue. So if you do manage to solve your issue to your satisfaction, please update the answer you gave
    – ixtmixilix
    Commented Jul 10, 2023 at 0:24

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