MY COMPUTER
Model: Msi GL72 7QF
Processor: Intel i7-7700HQ; 2.8GH
RAM: 16GB DDR4
GPU onboard: Intel(R) HD Graphics 630
GPU card: nVidia GTX960M, Optimus enabled
SSD: 500GB, GPT UEFI
INSTALLED OS: Windows10 Insider Preview; Mageia 7; Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
Secure boot and fast boot: disabled

ISSUE:
I want to install KDE Neon 5.18 alongside the other three OS's. Installation does not complete giving a FATAL ERROR saying Grub cannot be installed.

BACKGROUND:
Downloaded neon-user-20200213-1120.iso and used mkusb to create a live install USB memory stick.

Upon failure I looked at the EFI partition /dev/sda2 with the following results:

Code: Select all

root@MSI:~# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
root@MSI:~# cd /mnt
root@MSI:/mnt# ls
 boot-repair   boot-sav   EFI  'System Volume Information'  '$WINDOWS.~SY'
root@MSI:/mnt# cd EFI
root@MSI:/mnt/EFI# ls -l
total 28
drwx------ 4 root root 4096 Dec 31 17:09 Boot
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Nov 29 11:28 mageia
drwx------ 4 root root 4096 Jan 10 09:47 Microsoft
drwx------ 4 root root 4096 Nov  1 10:58 MSI
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Feb 18 18:17 neon
drwx------ 4 root root 4096 Nov  1 10:58 refind
drwx------ 3 root root 4096 Feb 18 18:17 ubuntu
root@MSI:/mnt/EFI# cd neon
root@MSI:/mnt/EFI/neon# ls -l
total 3644
-rwx------ 1 root root     108 Feb 18 18:34 BOOTX64.CSV
-rwx------ 1 root root     126 Feb 18 18:34 grub.cfg
-rwx------ 1 root root 1116024 Feb 18 18:34 grubx64.efi
-rwx------ 1 root root 1269496 Feb 18 18:34 mmx64.efi
-rwx------ 1 root root 1334816 Feb 18 18:34 shimx64.efi
root@MSI:/mnt/EFI/neon#

Not only was the /EFI/neon directory created, but also grubx64.efi (and shimx64.efi) was created.

Because I want to boot from Windows, I added the grubx64.efi entry into the Windows Boot Manager menu and setup BIOS to recognize it, A Grub Bash session appeared instead of KDE Neon.

I changed the Windows Boot Manager menu to point to shimx64.efi with the same results.

I then used rEFInd to boot instead of the Windows Boot Manager. That ended up pointing to grubx64.efi and the Grub Bash session

On the (incorrect?) assumption that Grub was actually installed correctly, I attempted to reinstall KDE Neon from the live USB memory, but this time without attempting to install a Grub bootloader: ubiquity -b does that. The installation completed successfully but I still cannot boot into KDE Neon.

Any suggestions on how to fix this would be greatly appreciated.

Latest ISO 20.02.2020 broken. Crash every time when "update-grub".
Previous build 13 February installs nice, but i don't have it anymore.
Tried re-download official .iso from 2 PCs... (did not test this issue on second PC)
I'm perfectly installs Neon on main PC even year ago, but have issue with latest .iso.
Flash on USB from Win10 using Rufus and from Ubuntu using GNOME Disks "recovery image".
Every try to install, i got installer crash. I have only one HDD and install in auto - full clean mode.

P.S. Now i'm downloaded and temporary installed latest build Ubuntu 20.04.
But will be back on NEON when the problem is solved.
20.04 already have xOrg 1.20.7/Mesa 20.0.0/nVidia 440.59 and confirmed GNOME 3.36 in the coming month. (now installed GNOME 3.35.9x)
New GNOME and all system works perfectly smooth with 1660Ti.

xenobeat~
Thank you for your comments. I had to reinstall Grub completely in order to fix the problem. NEON identifies itself as UBUNTU, however, in the Windows Boot Manager. That's very confusing when the real Ubuntu is also installed. I'm sure that little quirk makes sense to somebody, but not to me. My solution is to not install NEON on any hard drive alongside any other operating system. I did instead isolate it with an installation on a USB memory stick. It seems to be working fine in that environment.

I could be wrong, but I thought ISO 20.02.2020 was still in Beta. If so, it's there for a reason.