I have a Windows 11 laptop and recently gotten excited to try Linux. I read good things about Mint being pretty good to go out of the box, and while I can be a fast learner I’m also tired and don’t have a tremendous amount of bandwidth.

So I followed all the installation instructions, verified, flashed a USB, booted into it and started to install a dual boot of it. Made it through installation until it told me my computer had BitLocker on, and I’d need to go turn it off and try again. Fair enough.

Went back into my Windows OS (after booting it went to “diagnosing your PC”). I don’t seem to have bitlocker installed - looks like a Pro version thing which I don’t have. It did show that encryption was enabled, so I turned it off.

Restarted to boot to USB. Nope, “mmx64.efi - Not Found” error.

OK, googled it, renamed it, let’s go.

error: shim_lock protocol not found error: you need to load kernel first

OK… I googled it just enough to see this is going to be a pain.

I tried remaking my USB just in case, didn’t help. It’s extra frustrating because my first attempt to boot into Linux went so well! How did it go from booting into it flawlessly to giving me a series of errors?

Did I anger the Microsoft gods and now they’re blocking my path? Is this a bad omen that Linux is going to be a problem on my laptop in general?

  • Ulu-Mulu-no-die@lemmy.zipEnglish
    21·
    2 days ago

    Not the one you’re asking but I’ve been dual-booting Windows and Linux on my gaming desktop for many years, every time a build a new PC, disabling “secure boot” AND “fast boot” in the BIOS is the very first thing I do and I never had problems (I play on Linux but I keep Windows for testing in case I want to report a bug).

    Fast boot is even more troublesome, since it’s a Windows specific feature that allows it to not truly shutdown so it can startup faster later, but that can cause locks for other OS that won’t work correctly.

    In theory, Linux should be able to support secure boot (not fast boot), but since that one too was made for Windows, there are cases in which it could cause problems, I will always disable it just to be on the safe side.