Black screen when installing OS

Question

The second day of trying to install an OS on MacBook 2011 (dual videocard) years via usb flash drive or ElementaryOS nor any other linux distro is not installed, even if i select "TRY Elementary" just a black screen and silence ... Google helped me that it is necessary to add in line nomodeset but it is also useless, then went to what is multiple rows and then silence. Can you recommend something else? Distributions installed on a USB flash drive using the Etcher and Unetbotin, ie when loading them in sight, but then just black.

Answer 1

I think have the same issue! I have a MacBook Pro Pro "Core i7" 2.2 17" Early 2011. I've bought a new usb stick after seeing some usb issues during boot. I've redownloaded the Loki image, I've checked the download with sha256sum. I've flashed the usb stick with both UNetbootin and Startup Disk Creator. I've checked with Gparted that the disk has a boot flag. Some grub experiments:

• No changes: black screen
• Adding the nomodeset and removing quiet splash gives a lot of [ok]'s but then a black screen with the one _.
• Removing file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed and adding live-media-path=/casper/ ignore_uuid, resulted in no errors but a fadeout to black.

Not sure what else to try...

I've been using Freya for months already on the same laptop, I'm just trying to upgrade to Loki.

Update #1: Flashed the USB stick with Freya 0.3.2, removed quiet splash added nomodeset. Worked like a charm, booted just fine...

Update #2: Flashed USB stick with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, removed quiet splash added nomodeset. Booted with the [ok]'s, but ended in the black screen with the single _.

Update #3: I came the following docs which notes included warnings about bugs in the Startup Disk Creator. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick#Install_and_run_Startup_Disk_Creator_alias_usb-creator I wasn't sure which mode I'm in (BIOS / UEFI) so I installed Virtual Box, created a virtual machine with Ubuntu 16, flashed the USB with Ubuntu 16 from there. Booted (for some reason 2 EFI boot's appeared, I tried both), removed quiet splash, added nomodeset. It booted with the [ok]'s, but ended in the black screen with the single _, again.

Update #4: Flashed USB stick with Ubuntu 16.10 (using Etcher this time). During boot 2 EFI boot's appeared, tried both. Removed quiet splash added nomodeset. Booted with the [ok]'s, but ended in the black screen with the single _.

Update #5: Using usb stick of update #4, when I removed quiet splash but didn't add nomodeset it ends with:

fb: switching to radeondrmfb from EFI VGA

Update #6: Tried adding nointremap (from: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2303621&page=2&p=13547523#post13547523) resulted in same black screen with _.

Update #7: I checked my current grub parameters, from /etc/default/grub, the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT. They where:

i8042.nomux=1 i8042.reset i915.lvds_channel_mode=2 i915.modeset=1 i915.lvds_use_ssc=0

Resulted in

fb: switching to radeondrmfb from EFI VGA

Update #8: Tried the above, with nomodeset. That ends with the black screen with _.

Update #9: Following the instructions on the following page worked!
https://orville.thebennettproject.com/articles/installing-ubuntu-14-04-lts-on-a-2011-macbook-pro/
Checking /etc/default/grub and /etc/grub.d/10_linux I figured out I've done this to get Freya working. (Really wish I had a better memory) This does however completely disables the Radeon graphical card, which also reminds me to why I couldn't hook up a second screen.

Update #10: In an attempt to get the Radeon graphics card working I re-read the following forum post. One of the last steps it mentions is running the rEFInd install again in OS X. Doing this gave me the proper rEFInd boot screen which then included one Elementery OS option. This option also enabled the graphics card. So I could finally use external screens again and play some more demanding games. https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2157775

Answer 2

I'd like to add to Peter's answer with my own experience:

I followed this link on Update #9 to install eOS 0.4 (Loki) alongside macOS Sierra. After installation, rEFInd was no longer showing and I went straight to black screen.

To solve this, I pressed alt on boot, which showed me the regular macOS Boot Screen, to start up macOS, then reinstalled rEFInd.

After rebooting, rEFInd greeted my again and I was able to boot elementaryOS without the need to change grub's options again, I assume that AMD drivers (or at least compatible ones) were installed along with Loki.