Linux mint xfce installation issues

[Laksidecloudz]

Linux Mint Installer Issues Report — HP EliteBook 840 G3

Date: April 2, 2026
Edition: Linux Mint 22.3 Xfce 64-bit
Hardware: HP EliteBook 840 G3, Intel Core i5-6300U, 8GB RAM, SanDisk 256GB SSD

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Issue #1: Touchpad Left-Click Failure in Live Session

Description

The laptop touchpad (SynPS/2 Synaptics) has a critical bug where left-click does not function. Right-click works, cursor movement works, but left-click is completely non-functional. Additionally, touching the touchpad causes the external USB mouse's left-click to stop working.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Boot Linux Mint 22.3 Xfce live session
2. Attempt to left-click with touchpad — no response
3. Connect external USB mouse — left-click works
4. Touch the touchpad — external mouse left-click stops working

Error Details

• xinput list shows the touchpad detected as SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad (id=12)
• xev shows keyboard events but no mouse button events when touching the touchpad
• Xorg log shows driver libinput is loaded but with multiple UnloadModule: "libinput" entries
• psmouse module loaded but shows 0 usage count

Attempted Fixes (None Successful in Live Session)

• xinput disable/enable — temporarily works for external mouse only
• Kernel parameters: i8040.nopnp=1, nomodeset — no improvement
• BIOS touchpad setting — not available in this BIOS version
• Accessibility settings — no issues found
• sudo modprobe -r psmouse && sudo modprobe psmouse — live session limitations prevented full testing

Possible Cause

This appears to be a kernel/driver-level compatibility issue between the Synaptics PS/2 touchpad and the libinput driver on this specific HP EliteBook 840 G3 hardware. Similar issues have been reported with kernel updates breaking touchpad functionality (citation:22).

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Issue #2: Installer (Ubiquity) Crash at Language Selection

Description

The Linux Mint installer crashes immediately at the language selection screen with multiple Perl/debconf errors.

Error Messages

ubiquity: Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 53
ubiquity: debconf: DbDriver "targetdb": could not open
ubiquity: localechooser: 133: echo: echo: I/O error
ubiquity: dbfilter_handle_status: response -7
ubiquity: Failed to update apt indexes to run ubuntu-drivers

Steps to Reproduce

1. Boot Linux Mint 22.3 Xfce live session
2. Launch installer via desktop icon or sudo ubiquity
3. Installer crashes at language selection step

Attempted Fixes (None Successful)

• sudo ubiquity -b — same crash
• LANG=C ubiquity — same crash
• ubiquity --no-migration-assistant — option not recognized
• ubiquity --no-check-hardware — same crash
• Running from desktop icon — same crash

Possible Cause

Likely related to Issue #1 — the unstable input driver state may be causing cascading failures in the installer's debconf system. Similar ubiquity crashes have been reported with debconf database errors (citation:6)(citation:7).

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Issue #3: USB Drive Partition Corruption After ISO Flash

Description

After flashing Linux Mint ISO using balenaEtcher, the 14GB USB drive shows only ~5MB capacity in Windows. Windows cannot format the drive and shows "Unknown capacity."

Steps to Reproduce

1. Flash Linux Mint ISO to USB using balenaEtcher
2. Insert USB into Windows machine
3. USB appears with limited capacity and cannot be formatted

Fix Attempted

Used diskpart in Windows to restore the drive:

diskpart
select disk X
clean
create partition primary
format fs=fat32 quick
assign
exit

Possible Cause

This is a known behavior — Linux ISOs create a partition layout that Windows doesn't fully understand. The clean command wipes the layout and rebuilds it.

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Summary Table

#	Issue	Severity	Status	Likely Component
1	Touchpad left-click failure	High	Unresolved	Kernel/libinput driver
2	Installer crash at language step	Critical	Unresolved	Ubiquity/debconf
3	USB partition corruption in Windows	Low	Resolved	ISO flashing (expected)