I am trying out a Clevo MZ41, pretty interesting machine. It is coreboot supported (Dasharo, in the future also Heads) which is exciting.
But I cant boot any live Linux? I tried Fedora Media writer and KDEs iso image writer. I tried Fedora KDE and KDE Neon (you see a trend haha) and also Ventoy.
These sticks normally always boot up, but here I get Dracut timeout, partition /root not found etc.
In the insydeH2O Bios I already disabled Secureboot entirely (not even needed, that Bios is awesome I can even deploy my own keys and all). Nothing changed.
Warning: /dev/disk/by-label/Fedora-KDE-Live-38-1-6 does not exist
Warning: /dev/root does not exist
... emergency mode ...
Anyone know whats going on here?
It’s possible that the label of the disk somehow doesn’t match, you can check that by inserting the stick into your normal desktop and seeing if it boots. It’s probably fine, but even big distros make packaging mistakes sometimes. The partition has to be labeled exactly as stated in the path it can’t find, if you changed it, it won’t boot.
If the label is correct and the disk boots on another machine, there’s something else going on. In my experience, when initrd can’t find the root partition after selecting the flash drive as a boot option, the kernel is probably not set up for USB devices when it needs to be. The initramfs image may miss the appropriate firmware or drivers, or the kernel doesn’t support a device feature that’s enabled by default.
If your laptop has dedicated USB 2 ports, try booting from there. In my experience, USB 2 works more reliably than USB 3 in the early boot process.
Also check any USB 3 related settings, such as XHCI hand-off and such; on some models of motherboard you need to turn all of that off. Some chipsets just don’t have very good Linux support, or need a firmware update before they work well, so make sure to check the vendor’s website for any firmware updates if you have an OS installed.
The stick works and boots normally.