Lenovo ThinkPad P1
Getting Ubuntu to Install and Boot
Shrinking Windows partition
WARNING: IF YOU HAVE BITLOCKER ON A DRIVE, YOU MUST HAVE YOUR WINDOWS BITLOCKER RECOVERY KEY IF YOU WANT TO SHRINK THAT WINDOWS PARTITION ON THAT DRIVE. OTHERWISE, FIND A DIFFERENT HARD DRIVE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Make sure you have enough space (defragment your drive - see HP ZBook Studio G4 for information on how to do that).
You can also shrink a Windows (NTFS) partition from inside the Ubuntu installer. I don't recommend it if you use BitLocker encryption though.
Rebooting and BIOS settings
Burn the flash drive in GPT mode using Rufus. Use ISO mode (not DD mode).
Restart your computer.
You don't need to change the BIOS settings if:.
If you are using "UEFI BIOS version" 1.15, we HIGHLY recommend UPDATING TO A NEWER VERSION. You can do this using the Lenovo Vantage utility on Windows.
In the BIOS, make sure you are using DISPLAY > HYBRID GRAPHICS (I recommend this if you want to have battery life).
You can also allocate 512MB of video RAM instead of 256MB to make games faster.
Save and exit in the BIOS settings.
Installing with GRUB
It should automatically boot to the flash drive if you have it plugged in. You should see a GRUB screen.
Edit the first option by pressing e. Before --- in quiet splash --- (you may have to press up and right arrow to get to it because it doesn't show line breaks. The "\" at the end of a line means the line continues onto the next "line" of the screen), insert modprobe.blacklist=nouveau so the installer doesn't freeze.
(This is before the casperfs.whatever on the last line)
Press Ctrl+X to boot into Ubuntu installer.
If something weird happens, it may be the case that your flash drive is corrupted, so burn the image to your flash drive again in Rufus and try again.
If Ubuntu prompts to check your filesystem when booting, don't let it check your filesystem. Just in case. It won't do much if it checks the filesystem but it may corrupt Windows partitions by mistake.
Now go into the installer.
Turn off Secure Boot in the Ubuntu installer. You don't need to set a password for that. You also don't have to install third-party software.
You can set the bootloader partition to the Windows bootloader partition. Now, where you shrunk your disk and now have free space on it, click on that partition, and click Change... > Mountpoint > / and click OK.
You can click OK on the next screen when it asks you to confirm.
You can connect to the internet to get updates when installing.
First Boot into Your Ubuntu Installation
Now when the installer completes, reboot into GRUB and press e and under linux root=/some/random/thing ..., before quiet in quiet splash, type in modprobe.blacklist=nouveau. (only if you didn't install with discrete graphics. Talk to us in the Telegram for support with that.) Then press Ctrl+X to boot into Ubuntu.
If you reboot back into Windows (say, in GRUB) and you have shrunk a BitLocker partition, YOU MUST TYPE IN YOUR RECOVERY KEY ONCE. Then Windows will try to fix the Bitlocker filesystem which takes 2-3 minutes.
After Booting into Ubuntu...
Edit /boot/grub/grub.cfg in a text editor as the root user.
(To do this, open a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T, type in sudo nano /boot/grub/grub.cfg and then type in your password. You should see different text appear on the screen.)
Under GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT, before quiet splash, type in modprobe.blacklist=nouveau and save the file (Ctrl+X, Y, ENTER).
In that same terminal (or in a new terminal), type in sudo update-grub and wait for the process to complete.
Now you no longer have to type in that modprobe.blacklist=nouveau thing every time you boot!
Enjoy using Ubuntu/Linux!
Sources
Incredibly useful link: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lenovo_ThinkPad_P1
https://www.howtogeek.com/196655/how-to-configure-the-grub2-boot-loaders-settings/
Specs
| Processor | Intel Core i7 8850H (not overclockable) |
| RAM | 16 GB @ 2400MHz DDR4 (1x16GB SODIMM stick) |
| Solid State Drive | M.2-2280 SATA3 512 GB (approx. 476.837 GiB) Solid State Drive (theoretical max 600MB/s), expandable with 1 M.2-2280 NVMe slot |
| Optical Drive | None |
| Display | 15.6" FHD 1920x1080 |
| Video Card | Nvidia Quadro P1000 w/ 4GB vRAM (supports Vulkan and OpenGL) |
| Network Cards | Intel Dual-Band AX200 802.11ac/ax wireless, Gigabit (1Gb/s) Ethernet and PxE (network) boot via 2 USB Type-C ports using a compatible USB-C to Ethernet adapter |
| Battery | 4 cell Li-Cylinder, 80Wh |
| USB | (2) USB 3.0, (1) 3.1 Gen1, (2) Thunderbolt (USB 3.1 Gen2 form factor) |
| Pointing Devices | Trackpad (Synaptics?) |
| External Video Port | Dedicated HDMI port |
| Integrated Webcam | 720p integrated webcam |
| Network Accessories | USB Type C to Ethernet adapter for PXE boot, probably provided with the laptop |
| Warranty | 4 year with Accidental Damage Protection (ADP) |
| Other Ports and Sensors | Fingerprint reader, color sensor, microphone |
Additional information (with a different CPU) @ NotebookCheck