Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver install problems on ASUS ROG GL753VD

• Linux

Got a new notebook with better graphics card today: ASUS ROG GL753VD – it came with a Linux preinstalled I have never heard before: Endless OS. Since its Debian based i considered keeping it first, but the packages were outdated and the desktop environment a mix of old desktop with panel at the bottom and app launcher icons centered in the desktop – I did not like it very much. I am just to used to the GNOMEshell experience by now. So i tried to install current Ubuntu 18.04.1 and had several problems.

First, I was able to boot into the live environment, but did not know, you need to create a small efi partition nowadays – so grub refused to install. Then booting into the install environment did not work at all any more. After some research I found this askubuntu question. The simple solution is to add acpi=off as a boot parameter by selecting the line in the boot list and press “e”. Then the boot process worked again and i was able to install. But the shutdown froze again and I had to do a forced restart by holding the power button until shutdown.

The fresh installed system froze at boot up again, so I added acpi=off to the new grub loader too and finally got into my new Beaver.

Just to find out, that Linux was only recognizing one core of the 4×2 CPU. Also I experienced the sudden increase in fan activity mentioned in the askubuntu questions accepted answer. So I installed sudo apt install nvidia-387  like suggested there. I also installed gnome-session, which gives you the plain GNOME experience without all the ugly ubuntu customizations.

I rebooted – the system froze again and had to be forced to shutdown – but then it suddenly booted even without me adding the acpi=off to the boot options. And it then correctly recoginzed the 8 threads of the cpu core. I was excited and tried a restart, and yes – it did not freeze anymore and restarted as expected into my new GNOME session.

Everything seems to work now – except the keyboard lightning is always completly red. So much about my little odyssey.