[SOLVED] Fedora 43 Workstation fresh install: freezing after clicking "next" on initial setup wizard (right after choosing privacy options)

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1

I did a fresh installation of Fedora 43 Workstation using the official iso image (not beta):
Fedora-Workstation-Live-43-1.6.x86_64.iso (SHA256: 2a4a16c009244eb5ab2198700eb04103793b62407e8596f30a3e0cc8ac294d77).

After finishing the installation, when I click “next” in the initial setup wizard at the “Privacy” step (right before the “Time zone” step) the window freezes.

How can I fix this? Is it a known issue?

UPDATE: I reinstalled Fedora 43 Workstation after running blkdiscard -f on the NVMe device (M.2 SSD) where I am trying to install it. In both cases I used an optical drive to install Fedora (I burned a DVD prior to installation). Same result.

UPDATE: In VMware I am not experiencing the same issue. I believe the issue is hardware related. However, Fedora 42 worked fine on the same machine.

UPDATE: I booted the live DVD, mounted the Fedora partition, chroot-ed into my Fedora root folder to reset password. I rebooted the system and from command line (tty1) I logged in as root. I checked the kernel related errors using journalctl -k -p 3 and I saw some errors related to nouveau. I ran dnf update, I enabled rpmfusion repositories and then I installed akmod-nvidia using dnf install akmod-nvidia. I rebooted the system and everything worked as expected. Problem solved.

4

Not really solved, workaround found :slight_smile: I hit it too, seems issue with nvidia cards.
I have thinkpad X1 P1 gen 2 with Quadro T1000. It was freezing after choosing my city in the time zone, but only the setup utility.
My workaround: disabling dedicated graphic card in bios, finishing initial setup, enabling.

5

I ran into this same problem with a fresh install on an old PC (freezes at the time zone selection). After reading this thread, I removed my NVIDIA card and used the motherboard’s video output, and the install went flawless. I then reinstalled the NVIDIA card and so far it’s working.

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6

For reference: filed a bugzilla ticket 2412100 – gnome-initial-setup freezes at timezone step

7

Thank you. I am experiencing the same issue on a system with an Nvidia card.
I am not expert enought to reprodure your workaround.
Can you provide step-by-step instructions to follow?
Thanks

8

You can learn something new :slight_smile: Sorry, I won’t check the steps directly if it works but will try to describe it as much as possibel before I go to bed

“My” solution works, when you are able to disable card in BIOS (depends of type of bios you have)

  • reboot system, go to BIOS
  • go to display setting or wherever you can choose used graphics card
  • switch to use integrated GPU (in my case it’s intel gpu, i have laptop so I don’t need to bother with switching cables)

OR in another discussion was written that you can somehow skip the timezone step, just do not touch the search bar

OR you can install drivers by yourself.
Reset root password. You can do it from rescue mode or live “dvd” [1]
When started system, switch to console (tty), e.g. Ctrl + Alt + F3
Login with root user and password you set
run

# dnf update
# dnf install akmod-nvidia

wait 5-10 minutes (some kernel modules magic), reboot system

# shutdown -r now

Should be working now

[1] How to Reset the root Password :: Fedora Docs

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9

Please find below the steps of the workaround:

  1. Boot Fedora live DVD
  2. Open terminal and type:
$ sudo su
# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/nvme1n1: 232.89 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 250GB          
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt

Device           Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme1n1p1    2048      4095      2048     1M BIOS boot
/dev/nvme1n1p2    4096   4198399   4194304     2G Linux extended boot
/dev/nvme1n1p3 4198400 488396799 484198400 230.9G Linux filesystem

The fdisk -l command displays all disks and partitions. You have to identify the right one, where Fedora was installed (the / mount point I think). In my case it was /dev/nvme1n1p3 . Then mount this partition to /mnt folder:

# mount -t btrfs /dev/nvme1n1p3 /mnt

Chroot into the installed Fedora root folder:

# chroot /mnt/root

You can ignore the warnings related to proc and sys, you don’t need to mount other things like /proc ,/sys and /dev just to reset the password. However, if you want to learn more or want to continue installing nvidia drivers without rebooting you can read about chroot.

Reset password and reboot:

# passwd root
# exit
# reboot
  1. Wait for the system to reboot
  2. Press Ctrl + Alt + F1 to open TTY1
  3. Login as root with the password you set using passwd root command
  4. Type the following commands:
# dnf update
# dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
# dnf install akmod-nvidia
# reboot
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10

Very useful. I will try in the next days.
Thanks for the support!

11

Thank you! I followed your instruction and it worked perfectly. You have been really useful!