Lenovo Thinkpad P70

[Mangler]

When I install Kali on the P70, the process completes without error. When the system boots, I only see the Lenovo splash screen then the system boots again to the Lenovo splash screen and keeps repeating that cycle.

The live cd works just fine, it boots right up and the system is perfectly usable. I believe this is a boot loader issue but am not sure, I've tried installing grub from the live cd and that installs without error but the same thing occurs.

This is a brand new machine, I'm not sure if there is a hardware compatibility issue or something else.

I'd post details but am not sure where to start, also the live cd won't boot in UEFI so I've set it to both (legacy and UEFI) which gets me into the live cd. I thought Kali 2.0 supports UEFI out of the box but that either isn't the case or I'm just flat out doing something wrong.

Is there anything I should try or look at for the next steps?

[Mangler]

I think it is an issue with the drive being NVMe but I'm not sure how to get it to work.

[Wintersprings]

Hey mate,

You may need to just update your BIOS to the latest version. I've used 3 different Thinkpad models over the past few years and all of them have had trouble booting into various Linux distributions. They've had problems such as partial boots, boot loops and only partly functional Linux environments. All of these problems were fixed with BIOS updates.

[grid]

I wonder if this is specific to some Thinkpad models. I've got an L530 that dual boots Windows 7 & 64-bit Kali with no problems.

[Wintersprings]

I think it's just that Lenovo's support for Linux is very little across the board and it comes down to the distro itself having to overcome some of their incompatibilities.
I was told by the people at tech support that Linux wasn't supported by them and that it was out of their hands.

My L520 had a boot problem almost exactly like Manglers trouble booting, it could load and install from the liveCD but looped when it tried to boot from the hdd. Luckily, upgrading the BIOS to the latest version fixed the problem.

[Mangler]

Hey mate,

You may need to just update your BIOS to the latest version. I've used 3 different Thinkpad models over the past few years and all of them have had trouble booting into various Linux distributions. They've had problems such as partial boots, boot loops and only partly functional Linux environments. All of these problems were fixed with BIOS updates.

I see that there is one update available and it lists this as one of the changes:

New) Support legacy boot on system with NVMe SSD.(Driver is needed.)

I'll try this out, thanks for the info!

[Wintersprings]

Great, I hope it works for you.
If you haven't ever updated a BIOS before, make sure you read up on how to do it correctly and take the whole process nice and slow. Read and re-read the instructions a few times just to make sure. Most PC problems can be remedied with some work, but a stuffed up BIOS is almost entirely unrecoverable.

Good luck.

[Mangler]

Great, I hope it works for you.
If you haven't ever updated a BIOS before, make sure you read up on how to do it correctly and take the whole process nice and slow. Read and re-read the instructions a few times just to make sure. Most PC problems can be remedied with some work, but a stuffed up BIOS is almost entirely unrecoverable.

Good luck.

Fortunately I am familiar with updating BIOS. But I am having bad luck there as well, the Lenovo bootable ISO does not boot, tried multiple USB devices and machines. Their support offered to flash it at the depot because it is in warranty so I will let them try to break it

[Mangler]

Great, I hope it works for you.
If you haven't ever updated a BIOS before, make sure you read up on how to do it correctly and take the whole process nice and slow. Read and re-read the instructions a few times just to make sure. Most PC problems can be remedied with some work, but a stuffed up BIOS is almost entirely unrecoverable.

Good luck.

Well the downloaded ISO from Lenovo turned out to not actually be bootable. I found the solution to update via Linux live here https://workaround.org/article/updat...b-flash-stick/

[Mangler]

I'm happy to report the BIOS update worked, Kali installed and boots perfectly now. Thanks for the suggestion!