I have been trying to install Linux on an HP Pavilion desktop system for the last month without success. I started off with Mint, because that's my preferred distro, but it wouldn't boot off the USB drive. I would get a grub option to boot Virginia, but subsequently the boot process simply died, showing me the HP logo and nothing else. I then tried Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux and SUSE Linux. All failed in a similar manner - they just wouldn't boot off a USB drive. Finally, I tried Mint again, but this time choosing the "compatibility mode" option.

That actually worked! However, that's just the part that boots off the USB drive. I subsequently installed Mint on the HP hard drive but have never gotten it to boot. I do get a grub> prompt and working with that I can get started as follows:

grub> set root=(hd0,3)
grub> linux /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda3
grub> initrd /boot/initrd.img
grub> boot

Note that the linux and initrd lines used tab completion to select /boot/vmlinuz and /boot/initrd.img, so grub recognized and found the files without a problem..

This begins the boot process, but after a few seconds it halts showing:

1.870163] usb 1-11: new high-speed USB device number 4 using xhci_hcd
2.xxxxxx] usb 1-11: New USB device found, idVendor=04a9, idProduct=2774, bcdDevice= 0.00
2.xxxxxx] usb 1-11: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
2.xxxxxx] usb 1-11: Product: MF4700 Series
2.xxxxxx] usb 1-11: Manufacturer: Canon Inc
2.050238] usb 1-11: SerialNumber: 0131G24DD3D0
2.186148] usb 1-14: new full-speed USB device number 5 using xhci_hcd
2.335606] usb 1-14: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=b00c, bcdDevice= 0.00
2.xxxxxx] usb 1-14: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
2.xxxxxx] usb 1-14: Product: Bluetooth Radio
2.xxxxxx] usb 1-14: Manufacturer: Realtek
2.341873] usb 1-14: SerialNumber: 00e04c000001

Finally, after several minutes it shows

Begin: Loading essential drivers …

And makes no further progress.

This is reminiscent of the multiple failures in trying to boot the machine in anything other than “compatibility mode”. At this point I don’t know what else to do, other than trying to configure the boot process to be in “compatibility mode”.

So, what is “compatibility mode” and can I somehow make it occur from the grub command line? Otherwise, this nice HP Desktop is nothing more than a Windows machine, for which I have almost no use.

Please help.

An online search will give you numerous sites with an explanation of what 'compatibility mode' is in regard to computers. The link below is an explanaiton on wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibility_mode

You haven't posted any information on how old this computer is which information might help someone to help you. I haven't had any problem installing different Linux systems on my HP Pavilion. Do you not have an option to select a one time boot option (F9 key on my HP) using a specific key? Did you boot or see a boot option for UEFI boot? Unless this is a ten year old or older computer it should be UEFI compatible.

Welcome to LinuxQuestions.

Specifically linux Mint by default uses open source drivers for video and depending on hardware they might not work well. Compatibility mode disables the open source drivers. If your system does not boot once installed you can try the nomodeset kernel option. The nomodeset kernel options should work with the other distributions.

However, seeing the grub prompt would indicate another problem other then drivers. As posted specific hardware information on your HP might help.

https://linuxmint-installation-guide...t_options.html

Over the month in which I battled this problem, I - little by little - learned enough to finally solve the problem. I eventually learned a lot about the problem but the two most important things were how to use the grub prompt to load the kernel and using the 'e' key during grub USB booting to inspect the parameters which were about to be used for the kernel boot process. Once I understood this I was able to see the parameters that Linux Mint used to boot in compatibility mode. Note: not a theoretical discussion about what compatibility mode might mean, but the actual boot parameters which brought about the actual successful boot from the USB drive.

The actual boot parameters used by Linux Mint for compatibility mode are noapic noacpi and nomodeset. Using these from the grub command line:

grub> set root=(hd0,3)
grub> linux /boot/vmlinuz noapic noacpi nomodeset root=/dev/sda3
grub> initrd /boot/initrd.img
grub> boot

Worked! However, the screen was in 640 x 480 resolution - but at least it worked! Subsequent booting left off the nomodeset parameter. This brought up the screen in the expected 1980 x 1020 resolution - which is what I needed. I subsequently was able to make these values part of the grub default and now I have a fully functional machine. Awesome!

Congratulations! Please use the thread tools button to formally mark this as solved.

The problem with grub looks to me like a failure to find the configuration file for the boot menu. Running grub-mkconfig might solve it.