While poking around the system, the problem reached out and smacked me in the face: nouveau, the open source Nvidia driver, began dumping kernel errors to console faster than they could be printed. But this time, pressing Ctrl Alt F2 got me a working text-mode TTY, and I could log in successfully. Unfortunately, on first boot, I got a blank, black screen. On the second try, I chose 'Install Ubuntu (safe graphics mode).' This went much better, and I nexted my way through an Ubuntu install, joining my Wi-Fi network successfully along the way.

Experimentally trying Ctrl Alt F2 to pull a different TTY didn't accomplish anything, so I long-pressed the power button to turn the laptop off. The screen cleared, and hey-an Ubuntu progress splashed underneath the Republic of Gamers logo! We're on our way!įive minutes of fans in leafblower mode later, the animation splash stopped moving entirely. With that done, and the USB drive selected as boot device, things looked good-I chose 'Install Ubuntu' from the initial text mode menu. This is just a test laptop, and there are only so many hours in the day, so I disabled Secure Boot rather than monkeying around with MOK keys. The Zephyrus G1 offers the ability to enroll a new key-but unlike the Dragonfly, it also allows you to disable Secure Boot entirely. I already knew from my earlier experience with the Dragonfly G1 that using proprietary drivers and tainted kernels meant Secure Boot shenanigans. Pressing escape gets you to a boot selection menu, with an additional option to go into the BIOS/UEFI setup.

The first step in installation on a new laptop is everybody's favorite game: which key do I press to get to BIOS? It took a couple tries, but on the Zephyrus G14, the correct answer is Esc.

Zephyrus g14 fan control