[SOLVED] Kubuntu freezing during installation

[Ashurean]

I am trying to install Kubuntu on a new laptop (nothing on it, so don't have to worry about data loss), but despite an entire day of attempts, it always freezes as soon as the flashing Kubuntu logo and Omen icon show up while booting.
The laptop is an HP Omen 16 with an Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU and an Intel i7-13700HX CPU with 32GB of ram and a 1TB SSD running Windows 11.

In total, I have:
Verified integrity of the usb drive I was attempting the install by checking for bad blocks and using a brand new external ssd to try as well, with similar results.
Verified iso file integrity using SHA256
Verified usb port integrity
Verified laptop health (Ran stress tests on gpu and cpu to ensure the laptop itself was functioning normally)
Updated the BIOS
Tried Rufus iso and dd formats for creating the install drive
Tried balenaEtcher for creating the install drive
Disabled Secure Boot via UEFI
Disabled Fast Boot via power settings (First time after doing this was the most successful attempt, reached a screen that said "KERNEL PANIC! Please reboot your computer. Attempted to kill init! exitcode=0x0000000b"
Tried adding nomodeset to the boot command
Tried using a previous version of Kubuntu (Attempting to install 25.04, also tried 24.10)
Attempted to load via uefi settings
Attempted to load via Try or Install Kubuntu option
Attempted to load via Kubuntu (safe graphics) option (Would always freeze on the command line screen when using this)
Attempted to load via partition without using USB drive
All in all, majority of attempts resulted in it crashing on the Kubuntu and laptop logo screen, fewer but many crashed on the command line-looking screen (GRUB running I think), and two amazing attempts managed to load enough that the Kubuntu kernel itself was able to crash.

This is basically everything I could gather to try from googling every variation of "linux/kubuntu freezing when booting/installing". Please let me know if there's anything further I can try. I'm going to continue troubleshooting on my own and hopefully manage to install it through sheer perseverance in place of understanding.

Update: Maybe progress? Got stuck in a loop, but it technically wasn't frozen even if it didn't do anything but flash the Kubuntu logo for 4 hours.

[skyfishgoo]

so the USB boots fine and while in the TRY phase everything about the laptop is working? network, graphics, bluetooth, keyboard controls, the like?

it's only when you try to install that things hang?

during the install process, did you check the box to install proprietary drivers? (if you did, then don't do that and let it install without them).

at the stage where you choose the drive, what option are you choosing? (try manual or "something else" and make sure you start with a new partition table and assign you partitions manually)


make sure the laptop is on AC power and not on battery.

you didn't mention trying ventoy.net to set up your USB, i would try that.

[Ashurean]

Solved!
I was directed to this reddit question: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardwa...t_any_live_cd/
Turns out the HP OMEN Transcend 16 series of laptop have some wonky bios issues that effectively prevent most forms of linux from booting. The first step to resolve this issue is booting with "noapic" at the end of the grub line starting with "Linux"
This at least allows it to escape the booting stage, although it does disable the touchpad and may disable the keyboard, requiring external devices for the later corrective steps.

[skyfishgoo]

this might help better than simply noacip

#the acpi_osi parameter will let linux pretend to be a windows version that the BIOS will recognize
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="acpi_osi=! "acpi_osi=Windows 2009" mem_sleep_default=deep reboot=bios"

#the text for the acpi call can be obtained from the last string shown using
sudo strings /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/DSDT | grep -i 'windows ' | sort
install this package to get the strings command
binutils