Black Screen on Fresh Install, Aeon/MicroOS Desktop, Disk Encryption, Thinkpad L440

I recently found out about MicroOS Desktop / Aeon and love the philosophy behind it. I decided to try it out on my old Thinkpad L440. I have it installed now but when trying to boot into the OS I get a black screen, no option to decrypt the drive, and no grub. I have tried entering the password for disk decryption and that doesn’t do anything. After a while of sitting on this screen, the system will reboot itself and repeat the process. Now, if the USB stick I made for installing Aeon is inserted into the laptop, then I do get the prompt to decrypt the disk to display correctly, and the system can be booted from the grub menu on the USB stick (boot from hard drive option).

For the install, the only installer setting I changed from default was to add full disk encryption. The drive was fully wiped, I didn’t specify the partitioning myself just let the installer do what it wanted there. There is only one disk installed in the system. Secure boot was enabled in bios. In a previous install attempt, I tried without secure boot enabled, and that install exhibited the same behavior.

If anyone could offer some advice to try and fix this it would be greatly appreciated. If you need more information from me please let me know. Also, thanks to all the people working on this project, this OS does sound like the perfect desktop Linux environment to me (someone who has used Linux for many years, though is still not the most savvy user, and mostly just wants a simple, lightweight, reasonably secure, free and open source environment to work in).

Did you use a Ventoy USB stick to install your system by any chance?

Thanks for the response. No I didn’t, I made the USB stick using Popsicle USB Flasher from a separate PopOS system.

Please boot that way. And then post the output from:

efibootmgr -v

Sure thing, I get:

BootCurrent: 000C
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 000C,000A,0007,0008,0009,000B,000D
Boot0000 Setup FvFile(721c8b66-426c-4e86-8e99-3457c46ab0b9)
dp: 04 06 14 00 66 8b 1c 72 6c 42 86 4e 8e 99 34 57 c4 6a b0 b9 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0001 Boot Menu FvFile(126a762d-5758-4fca-8531-201a7f57f850)
dp: 04 06 14 00 2d 76 6a 12 58 57 ca 4f 85 31 20 1a 7f 57 f8 50 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0002 Diagnostic Splash Screen FvFile(a7d8d9a6-6ab0-4aeb-ad9d-163e59a7a380)
dp: 04 06 14 00 a6 d9 d8 a7 b0 6a eb 4a ad 9d 16 3e 59 a7 a3 80 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0003 Lenovo Diagnostics FvFile(3f7e615b-0d45-4f80-88dc-26b234958560)
dp: 04 06 14 00 5b 61 7e 3f 45 0d 80 4f 88 dc 26 b2 34 95 85 60 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0004 Startup Interrupt Menu FvFile(f46ee6f4-4785-43a3-923d-7f786c3c8479)
dp: 04 06 14 00 f4 e6 6e f4 85 47 a3 43 92 3d 7f 78 6c 3c 84 79 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0005 Rescue and Recovery FvFile(665d3f60-ad3e-4cad-8e26-db46eee9f1b5)
dp: 04 06 14 00 60 3f 5d 66 3e ad ad 4c 8e 26 db 46 ee e9 f1 b5 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0006 MEBx Hot Key FvFile(ac6fd56a-3d41-4efd-a1b9-870293811a28)
dp: 04 06 14 00 6a d5 6f ac 41 3d fd 4e a1 b9 87 02 93 81 1a 28 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0007* USB CD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,86701296aa5a7848b66cd49dd3ba6a55)
dp: 03 0a 24 00 d2 38 78 bc 82 0f 60 4d 83 16 c0 68 ee 79 d2 5b 86 70 12 96 aa 5a 78 48 b6 6c d4 9d d3 ba 6a 55 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0008* USB FDD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,6ff015a28830b543a8b8641009461e49)
dp: 03 0a 24 00 d2 38 78 bc 82 0f 60 4d 83 16 c0 68 ee 79 d2 5b 6f f0 15 a2 88 30 b5 43 a8 b8 64 10 09 46 1e 49 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0009* ATAPI CD0 VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,aea2090adfde214e8b3a5e471856a35400)
dp: 03 0a 25 00 d2 38 78 bc 82 0f 60 4d 83 16 c0 68 ee 79 d2 5b ae a2 09 0a df de 21 4e 8b 3a 5e 47 18 56 a3 54 00 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot000A* ATA HDD0 VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f604)
dp: 03 0a 25 00 d2 38 78 bc 82 0f 60 4d 83 16 c0 68 ee 79 d2 5b 91 af 62 59 56 44 9f 41 a7 b9 1f 4f 89 2a b0 f6 04 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot000B* ATA HDD1 VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f605)
dp: 03 0a 25 00 d2 38 78 bc 82 0f 60 4d 83 16 c0 68 ee 79 d2 5b 91 af 62 59 56 44 9f 41 a7 b9 1f 4f 89 2a b0 f6 05 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot000C* USB HDD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,33e821aaaf33bc4789bd419f88c50803)
dp: 03 0a 24 00 d2 38 78 bc 82 0f 60 4d 83 16 c0 68 ee 79 d2 5b 33 e8 21 aa af 33 bc 47 89 bd 41 9f 88 c5 08 03 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot000D* PCI LAN VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,78a84aaf2b2afc4ea79cf5cc8f3d3803)
dp: 03 0a 24 00 d2 38 78 bc 82 0f 60 4d 83 16 c0 68 ee 79 d2 5b 78 a8 4a af 2b 2a fc 4e a7 9c f5 cc 8f 3d 38 03 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot000E* IDER BOOT CDROM PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x16,0x2)/Ata(0,1,0)
dp: 02 01 0c 00 d0 41 03 0a 00 00 00 00 / 01 01 06 00 02 16 / 03 01 08 00 00 01 00 00 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot000F* IDER BOOT Floppy PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x16,0x2)/Ata(0,0,0)
dp: 02 01 0c 00 d0 41 03 0a 00 00 00 00 / 01 01 06 00 02 16 / 03 01 08 00 00 00 00 00 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0010* ATA HDD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f6)
dp: 03 0a 24 00 d2 38 78 bc 82 0f 60 4d 83 16 c0 68 ee 79 d2 5b 91 af 62 59 56 44 9f 41 a7 b9 1f 4f 89 2a b0 f6 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0011* ATAPI CD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,aea2090adfde214e8b3a5e471856a354)
dp: 03 0a 24 00 d2 38 78 bc 82 0f 60 4d 83 16 c0 68 ee 79 d2 5b ae a2 09 0a df de 21 4e 8b 3a 5e 47 18 56 a3 54 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0012* PCI LAN VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,78a84aaf2b2afc4ea79cf5cc8f3d3803)
dp: 03 0a 24 00 d2 38 78 bc 82 0f 60 4d 83 16 c0 68 ee 79 d2 5b 78 a8 4a af 2b 2a fc 4e a7 9c f5 cc 8f 3d 38 03 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0013* opensuse-secureboot HD(1,GPT,acdfec4d-0297-4a3e-b31f-d19c4abd5435,0x800,0x100000)/File(\EFI\opensuse\shim.efi)
dp: 04 01 2a 00 01 00 00 00 00 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 4d ec df ac 97 02 3e 4a b3 1f d1 9c 4a bd 54 35 02 02 / 04 04 32 00 5c 00 45 00 46 00 49 00 5c 00 6f 00 70 00 65 00 6e 00 73 00 75 00 73 00 65 00 5c 00 73 00 68 00 69 00 6d 00 2e 00 65 00 66 00 69 00 00 00 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0014* opensuse-secureboot HD(1,GPT,bde3e5d6-1add-4791-86ab-ec7562fa7fbb,0x800,0x100000)/File(\EFI\opensuse\shim.efi)
dp: 04 01 2a 00 01 00 00 00 00 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 d6 e5 e3 bd dd 1a 91 47 86 ab ec 75 62 fa 7f bb 02 02 / 04 04 32 00 5c 00 45 00 46 00 49 00 5c 00 6f 00 70 00 65 00 6e 00 73 00 75 00 73 00 65 00 5c 00 73 00 68 00 69 00 6d 00 2e 00 65 00 66 00 69 00 00 00 / 7f ff 04 00

Looking at that list, “Boot0013” and “Boot0014” are possibilities that might work. Probably one of those works. They both show “opensuse-secureboot” as the name.

If you hit F12 while booting, you should see a list of boot possibilities, and you should then be able to select one of those “opensuse-secureboot”.

You might need to do some testing to see which one works.

Once you know which one works, go into your BIOS settings as see if you can set that one to be the first boot choice.

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Thank you! It is now working. the F12 menu didn’t show any “opensuse-secureboot” options, nor did the bios, in both cases, I only saw the Samsung HDD listed once just as the model of the drive. I had the HDD set as #2 on boot priority and USB as #1, I changed that even though it shouldn’t matter (when I don’t have the USB plugged in of course) and I also disabled the “boot order lock” function. I don’t really see why changing either of those settings should have made a difference as they had been set that way for numerous other installs (previous Linux installs on this computer never had secure boot, maybe that is somehow related) but now the system is booting perfectly. I really appreciate the help, thanks again!

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I’m guessing that removing the “boot order lock” is what fixed the problem.

I’m glad to hear that it is now working.

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