[Solved] Ubuntu installation fails at the initial screen

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
1

Which Linux distro are you using? Ubuntu

Which release version? v26.04.1
(if rolling release without a release version, skip this question)

(If rolling release, last date updated?)

Which kernel are you using? None yet!

Which BIOS version are you using? The preinstalled version, whatever that is. I can see the BIOS but haven’t found text showing its version.

Which Framework Laptop 13 model are you using? Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 1

Having just built my new Laptop 13 Pro without problem, I can’t get Ubuntu (v26.04.1) to boot up at all.

I prepared a USB drive exactly as instructed in the guide. On booting the laptop (16GB RAM, 2GB WD_Black NVMe SSD) the USB drive’s light flickers for a while, an Ubuntu image displays with a rotating logo, and nothing further happens for at least the 20 minutes I have waited. Pressing Esc key alternates between this screen and one showing about 27 lines of text, start up actions, apparently most resulting in errors. The first three lines are in red, the first is, ‘ucsi_acpi USBC000:00: unknown error 256’, that is repeated and the third line is ‘ucsi_acpi USBC000:00: con3: failed to register partner alt modes (-5)’.

I also tried flashing the USB drive using Etcher instead of Rufus - same result. I tried a different USB drive - same again. I was careful to select GPT as partition type.

I reflashed one of the USB drives with Linux Mint installer (v22.3-cinnamon-64bit) - and that works fine in trial mode at least, I didn’t progress to installation. (The text is initially super small on the 13 Pro’s hi-res screen!)

I would be grateful for advice on what may be wrong and how to fix it. What am I missing?

Many thanks

2

Has the ISO been downloaded again? It may be that something was corrupted on the original ISO download then translated to the USB when being created.

Fedora 44 is also another option.

To help rule out the SSD itself, it would be worth installing anything on it and then running some diagnostic tools on the drive to see what it says. Even a spare SSD might be in order to help identify if it truly is a Framework mainboard issue or a SSD issue from the presumably 2TB drive.

3

Would you take a digital photo of this, clear enough to read the text, and paste that image here?

4

2026-09-27 IMG_5435 splash screen
2026-09-27 IMG_5435 splash screen1920×1440 266 KB

2026-09-27 IMG_5434 grub, presumably
2026-09-27 IMG_5434 grub, presumably1920×1440 455 KB

Hi Squiggler, herewith. The grub text shown came out identically every time I attempted installation. Does it tell you anything useful?

With thanks,

Christopher

1 Like
5

Hi pkunk,

Thank you for your suggestions. I will try a further download. If that doesn’t help I will try installing Windows whose tools I have greatest familiarity with. I think I have a 1TB drive put aside somewhere I could try if the installation is unsuccessful.

I have replied to Squiggler as you see above.

Many thanks, Christopher

1 Like
6

Have you checked the date and time in the BIOS? I think every instance of exact this issue was fixed by correcting that.

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7

Thanks for the photo - very useful for all readers wanting to help. The date/time suggestion from @gentux is excellent, try that next.

If that fails, I would next purchase a new NVMe stick from the web (eBay etc). A low capacity (128GB) one costs £15 delivered and I’m sure a cheap one could be sourced in pretty much all currencies. Installing against this would be a check of whether your drive could be faulty; it is unlikely for a new one, but it does happen.

8

Now you mention it, I did note that the time in the BIOS was way out. Just checking, it gives the date as 2025-01-03 and the time 16:42, hours out, (time zone unknown). I didn’t think this mattered as the installer would be time agnostic and the clock would be corrected when the computer became able to go online… Nevertheless, nothing tried, nothing gained - and you are perfectly right. The installation is working perfectly! (What is the mechanism?!) I did search in the community site before placing my post but didn’t find this.

Thank you very much everyone,

Problem solved!

Christopher

1 Like
9

I think it fails to check hashes, some cryptographic principles are time-based intentionally, if they fail it thinks the files are broken and refuses to load. But why it does not some date checking I don’t know. Even Firefox will tell you.

Glad it worked nevertheless.

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Thank you again for your rapid and effective assistance!

Christopher

11

There are parts of Windows that get hung up when the date/time is far off too.

My inclination is the time dependency or relative accuracy is an effort to thwart spoofing of time/date checks against certificates and other linearity checks. If a token is expired or from the future it is not within the current bounds of what should be expected.

Thus a new one could be requested and there have probably been weaknesses in the past that try to exploit the generation and this stops it from getting to that point.