Following is the step by step process that I followed to install Ubuntu in my MSI game laptop that I just bought. These steps should cover for all the Windows laptops and desktops. It took me sometime to install Ubuntu as it was not easy with UEFI Firmware, but these are the steps that I followed and installed in my laptop. The MSI laptop is running Ubuntu 16.0.4 as native OS with full functionality.

Pre-installation steps to prepare your machine for Ubuntu Installation:

1. Get to know Windows 10. 🙂
2. Shrink your Windows 10 partition to make room for ubuntu OS. You can choose to shrink as small as you would like to windows 10 partition
3. Create a partition
4. Download ubuntu
5. Download USB bootable drive maker (it is also in the ubuntu download page)
6. Create bootable USB drive as per the instruction on the Ubuntu download page

Bios setup in UEFI Firmware Setup (Getting to Bios is at the end of the page)

1. Go to UEFI Firmware Setup – check your computer manual for a key to get to the UEFI; normally it is ‘F3’ key that you need to press when you start up your computer until it boots up
2. On UEFI Firmware Setup menu, click on the “Advanced Options” choice
3. On the “Advanced Options” click on “UEFI Firmware Setup” – this will take you to good ‘ol Bios menus after a restart
4. Now you will see good ‘ol Bios setup. Disable following in Boot, Security tabs settings. You may have to navigate around to find following three.
   1. Secure Boot – disable
   2. Fast Boot. – disable
   3. Speed Stepping -disable
5. Boot configuration
   1. Select Boot mode to UEFI
   2. Disable Fast Boot
   3. UEFI hard Disk Drive BBS Priorities – select the UBUNTU as 1 and windows as 2.
6. Save and restart.

Fun Begins here:

1. 1. Go to UEFI by pressing a key (‘F3’ in most of computer)
   2. On UEFI Firmware Setup menu, click on the “Boot Options” section
   3. Then choose the first choice. (normally this is your USB drive)
   4. The computer will reboot and you will see GRUB menu
   5. Highlight ‘Try Ubuntu without installing’
   6. press ‘e’ key – this will take you to an editor with the startup command
   7. Take out ‘quiet splash’ and add ‘nomodeset’ andfrom the command line. After the change, the command will look as follows:

set gfxpoyload=keep
linux /casper/vmlinux.efi file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper nomodeset —
initrd /casper/initrd.lz

1. Click on ‘F10’ or a key as per the instruction on the screen
2. This will boot the computer in Ubuntu
3. Your computer should be working with touchpads, wifi and even bluetooth.
4. Configure your Wifi if  you are using one

Now you are up and running with Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Installation Steps: (note – you must follow above steps to get to this one)

1. Double click on the “install ubuntu …” on the desktop. It will start up the installation wizard.
2. You will see the option – “install Ubuntu alongside windows boot manager”  – I choose this because I wanted to have an option of going to windows as it is already installed, not a bad option to have in your computer
3. The next dialog is – “Write the Change to Disk” – at this point, it is now or never. If you click continue, it will install in the partitioned section of your boot drive. After this Ubuntu installer will take charge of the partition.
4. Once you click continue, you will get standard setup dialogs. Fill those appropriately and now you are almost there.
5. Once the installation is complete, you will get a final dialog window that says: “Installation has finished. You can continue testing Ubuntu now, until you restart your computer, any changes you make and documents you save will not be preserved.”  Choose to “Restart.” ( There are instruction on changing boot order in bios in Ubuntu if you choose “continue” but I have not tried that function.)
6. If you do not make the boot order changes, when your computer boots up, most likely, it will boot up in Windows. Now you go where is my Ubuntu Grub loader.
7. You need to go to UEFI then go to Bios settings
8. In Bios setting change the boot order from Windows to Ubuntu Grub as the first choice.
9. Save and exist the Bios setting
10. The computer will restart and will boot in Grub.
11. Now Rock and Roll time

Happy Linuxing !!!!!!

References

There are many references in Web with screen shots. However following one link is the most useful during my troubleshooting the installation.

• https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2297815&p=13392308#post13392308

Thank you to all who wrote post on their Ubuntu installation experiences.