Cannot install any Linux

[cherryduck]

Hi all, I'm trying to make the move from Windows 11 to Linux and getting nowhere. My setup:


CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 64GB DDR5 6000MT/s
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090
Motherboard: ASUS TUF GAMING B850-PLUS WIFI
OS: Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC (Build 26100)
Storage: Samsung SSD 990 EVO Plus 4TB

I have tried CachyOs, Nobara, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Pop!_OS and all fail after printing a message about malformed bluetooth vendor event most the time, but occasionally progress further to a point where it shows me progress on jobs 1 through 6, before freezing. I believe the malformed event is a red herring from what I can find. Just once, Nobara gave me a message about a soft lock on CPU#4.

Things I have tried:

Secure boot, fast boot and CSM are disabled. Legacy USB support set to auto (also tried disabled)
Updated BIOS, loaded optimised defaults (and then set the above settings)
Disabled iommu
Disabled native ASPM
Disabled fTPM
Disabled onboard bluetooth
Changed PCIe speeds to Gen3/4
Tried booting with nomodeset (I do use nVidia specific ISO's though where available)
Tried maxcpus=1
Blacklisted NVMe drivers
Disabled NVMe autonomous power state changes
Different USB sticks
Ventoy, Rufus, balenaEtcher

And probably a bunch more stuff, I've been at this for about 3 days. The only things I haven't tried yet is plugging into a different USB slot, and unplugging my NVMe, purely because my computer is in a fairly inaccessible location so I'd rather not have to pull everything out and unplug everything. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Suggested to run live USB and see if it works.

This is to rule out hardware incompatibilities.

 

[Brickwizard]

Welcome to the forums, I know both catchy and in particular pop can be pigs to install for the newbie, LMDE. Mint 23, Parrot home edition, MX -Linux are in the main more compliant, you only need to disable windows quick-start [fast boot] for most Linux to install, although i normally recommend disabling secure boot until Linux has loaded,
if having problems see https://www.linux.org/threads/basic-checks-if-linux-fails-to-install.58722/ and the links in my signature below

 

[cherryduck]

Suggested to run live USB and see if it works.

This is to rule out hardware incompatibilities.

Aren't they all live ISO's anyway? When booted in a VM, I get to a desktop environment with an installation option.

 

[cherryduck]

Welcome to the forums, I know both catchy and in particular pop can be pigs to install for the newbie, LMDE. Mint 23, Parrot home edition, MX -Linux are in the main more compliant, you only need to disable windows quick-start [fast boot] for most Linux to install, although i normally recommend disabling secure boot until Linux has loaded,
if having problems see https://www.linux.org/threads/basic-checks-if-linux-fails-to-install.58722/ and the links in my signature below

Hi there, I have checked that thread and confirmed all those things. Just to note, I'm not a newbie to Linux although I'm new here. I have decades of commercial experience in highly technical roles working on and with Linux.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Aren't they all live ISO's anyway?

No they aren't, there are separate ISO's for live boot and separate for bare metal install.

When booted in a VM, I get to a desktop environment with an installation option.

VM test is not helpful for your problem.

 

[cherryduck]

No they aren't, there are separate ISO's for live boot and separate for bare metal install.


VM test is not helpful for your problem.

Back in my day we used to have separate live and installation media but it seems quite hard to find separate ISOs these days. From what I can tell, many distros use live environments now for installation. Nonetheless I tracked down a specific live ISO of Fedora which also crashed on boot. I know VM's aren't going to help me out with my bare metal installation, I just use them to test distros.

I've also tried Linux Mint which froze during the startup jobs (pre-GUI).

 

[Rocketing-warp9]

(Just FYI, I Am still a newer user- I don't know if this will work in your case)
Hmm... All that I can think is some sort of hardware incompatibility..
A little bit of a wacky idea, If you have a spare drive and a spare computer perhaps.
If you can Boot on a spare, Install whatever distro you have onto an external drive (not just the Live .iso, But the whole system)
Then Plug it in on the Trouble PC--See if it boots it then.
Maybe Ventoy Might solve it if not.
When I was starting out a long time ago, That's what I did on a Dell Inspiron for a Lattitude with 22.04 LTS

Just a wacky idea..

 

[CaffeineAddict]

@cherryduck
Debian has the best hardware support so I'd suggest to try it:

netinst.iso (very minimal but requires internet connection to install):

Index of /debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd

DVD (full OS with plenty of software bundled):

Index of /debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-dvd

Live ISO (for live boot):

Index of /debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid

I tracked down a specific live ISO of Fedora which also crashed on boot.

It's hard to tell why without seeing error message or collecting some logs.

Possible problem is that you have enabled quick startup in Windows, note that is different from BIOS quick boot, the 2 options are a separate thing and both will cause problems booting.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

@cherryduck
btw. you need to tell us what software you used to create bootable USB?
And what options (if there are any) you used during USB preparation.

It's possible problem is with USB tool.

 

[f33dm3bits]

@cherryduck
Debian has the best hardware support so I'd suggest to try it:

I would only try Debian as a test but with that hardware I would probably recommend PikaOS as with that you get the latest kernels and Nvidia drivers without having to add any other repos, as with Debian that's not the case as Debian stable has old Nvidia drivers in their repos.

PikaOS Linux

PikaOS - Your new Linux distro for gaming and beyond!

wiki.pika-os.com

 

[f33dm3bits]

@cherryduck
btw. you need to tell us what software you used to create bootable USB?
And what options (if there are any) you used during USB preparation.

It's possible problem is with USB tool.

Yes this, as it's happened where some tools don't work correctily with some iso's and you get weird things happening during live boot or installation. As that hardware seems pretty main stream which OP has.

 

[f33dm3bits]

@cherryduck
btw. you need to tell us what software you used to create bootable USB?
And what options (if there are any) you used during USB preparation.

It's possible problem is with USB tool.

I think these.

Ventoy, Rufus, balenaEtcher

Also it might be worth updating your motherboards firmware the latest stable firmware version available.

TUF GAMING B850-PLUS WIFI｜Motherboards｜ASUS Global

ASUS TUF GAMING B850-PLUS WIFI: Military-grade motherboard with AMD Ryzen™ support, PCIe 5.0, WiFi 7, USB 20Gbps, and advanced cooling for peak performance.

www.asus.com

Click on Expand all, looks like "Version 1654 2026/04/27" is the most recent stable firmware for your motherboard.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I think these.

I've read the post 3 times and failed to spot this, not sure how

 

[beanburrito]

Welcome to the forums, cherryduck.

 

[deb_user]

If you're using NVME drives and have disable NVME support, you're not going to get much in the way of results. I suspect you've disabled so many things that you have little chance of success.

 

[cherryduck]

I disabled things one at a time to see if they were the cause and then re-enabled them, I've not left my NVMe drive disabled. My BIOS is on the latest. I actually suspect a memory issue now as Linux Mint boot did once crash with a stack trace which showed memory issues, which is more helpful than the usual freeze with no error messages I get on any distro, and memtest86 showed failures. I'm going to try one stick at a time, and swapping slots. I really hope it's NOT a hardware RAM issue because memory is so expensive right now!