Arch Linux

benalexau

Member

Registered: 2013-10-10

Posts: 19

[SOLVED] Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 6) Does Not Boot Live CD

I've had Arch Linux installed on the above laptop for years without incident. I used Ansible to set it up from scratch and have always used UEFI. A system board was replaced a few months ago and there was no issue. Then the bottom keyboard was replaced last week, the tech ran diagnostics (F12 > Apps > Lenovo Diagnostics), and it again booted up the existing Arch installation without a problem. I then performed an Arch upgrade and on reboot was greeted with the BIOS settings screen. I tried booting using my custom archiso, but it wouldn't boot (blank screen, restart, then BIOS settings). I then tried a vanilla archlinux-2022.03.01-x86_64.iso in a brand new USB drive. It did the same (blank screen, restart, then BIOS settings).

The BIOS settings are:

Restart > Load Setup Defaults > OS Optimized > Enabled (also tried Disabled)
Startup > Boot Mode > Diagnostics
Security > Secure Boot > Disabled
Config > Power > Sleep State > Linux
Config > Thunderbolt 3 > Thunderbolt BIOS Assist Mode > Enabled
Startup > UEFI/Legacy Boot > UEFI Only (default)
Startup > UEFI/Legacy Boot > CSM Support > No (default)
Restart > Exit Saving Changes

I can boot both my original archiso and the latest live CD in legacy (BIOS) mode without an issue. Unfortunately I need UEFI as my Ansible provisioning playbook has been crafted to use UEFI and I have lots of other Arch systems that share it. Plus this machine used to work under UEFI.

I was able to use a recovery USB to reinstall the official Lenovo-provided Windows 10. I then upgraded all firmware to the latest, including the BIOS to version 1.55. This hasn't resolved the issue.

I welcome any suggestions.

Last edited by benalexau (2022-03-19 00:39:30)

benalexau

Member

Registered: 2013-10-10

Posts: 19

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 6) Does Not Boot Live CD

Update:

I was able to install Ubuntu 21.04 (desktop) under UEFI (secure boot disabled).

I was also able to boot archlinux-archboot-2022.03.16-21.46-latest-x86_64.iso under UEFI (secure boot disabled).

The issue appears to be with archlinux-2022.03.01-x86_64.iso as well as an archiso ISO image built using the /usr/share/archiso/configs/releng profile. These boot under legacy mode just fine, but fail to boot when UEFI is enabled in any way.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,627

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 6) Does Not Boot Live CD

Add debug to the kernel commandline and check whether you see output.

benalexau

Member

Registered: 2013-10-10

Posts: 19

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 6) Does Not Boot Live CD

@V1del, I can't edit the kernel commandline as we never get that far. I use F12, select the USB boot drive containing the archiso, then the screen goes blank and it reboots. Usually you'd receive a systemd-boot menu, but it never gets displayed. It wouldn't surprise me if this is some issue with archiso / systemd-boot given GRUB loads under UEFI with both Ubuntu and Archboot. The obvious alternative to simply installing via Archboot is now blocked because the "minimal" image doesn't contain wifi support, whereas the larger image reports out of memory.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,627

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 6) Does Not Boot Live CD

There were a bunch of potentially breaking changes in systemd-boot e.g. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=273765 however this particular issue should afaik be fixed in systemd 250.4 and should hence land on the next ISO, however not entirely certain whether there might be a correlation your and the linked issue.

Last edited by V1del (2022-03-18 12:24:28)

benalexau

Member

Registered: 2013-10-10

Posts: 19

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 6) Does Not Boot Live CD

It isn't fixed in the latest systemd-boot given I downloaded the latest Archiso image from the releng pipeline and it behaved the same way as described above. I noticed the same issue is present as far back as archlinux-2022.01.01-x86_64.iso, which is the oldest version I could find.

Fortunately I have been able to work around the issue by using Archboot as the live image (the out of memory issue was resolved) and using rEFInd as the bootloader.

There is definitely some issue in systemd-boot given the laptop boots with both GRUB and rEFInd.