Windows came on your Alienware correct?  Have you ever seen an Alienware offered with Linux?

There's your answer.  

Hi,

Unfortunately, we can only provide support for Windows 7/8.1/10 with this system. For assistance with an Ubuntu operating system, we recommend you try posting on the Ubuntu community forums.

@JPowell490 - Just because it didn't come with the OS does not mean it wont work, didn't you read the whole post, the guy said his friend can do it with no problem.

The was recently a major issue with windows 10 blowing up 17 and 18 inch alienware laptops screens

Several of the people researching the problem were using Linux Mint USB to reload correct firmware into LCD to try to fix the issue, they had no problem using Mint, I can't vouch for the other Linux OS's

And yes, the BIOS features stink, no idea why they done what they done - 4 NGFF HDD slots and no RAID - Go Figure.

The only suggestion I can think of it doing a disk wipe - completely overwriting it.

I've notice that Alienware laptops with mSATA or IRST sometimes "bug out" when you do a re-install, the only solution I found was to overwrite the HDD, might be a good place to start anyway..

If you have an external network drive you can try booting from that via LV5 or LV6, I think thats what the RJ45 Ethernet connection is called now

@JPowell490 - The most unhelpful forum post I've ever read.

It IS just a laptop at the end of the day. I also had loads of issues upgrading to Windows 10, in the end I had to format with W8.1 as it corrupted the install. Only turning fast boot off resolved the issue for me.

But nothing, and I mean NOTHING will make Ubuntu or any other flavour of Linux run.

I assumed that Ubuntu would be supported.....

I've tried booting from a network drive, it still doesn't have it. Does exactly the same thing as when I run a live OS from a USB drive.

Someone, somewhere must have had the same issue, surely? Or perhaps I just have a duff laptop...

I don't have a suggested fix, but to get you out of your jam, what about VirtualBox?

Hopefully something else will go wrong (do you have loss/damage coverage) that will have them sending you a new one.

I feel yuor pain, but Dell's support for laptops is the best I've ever had.

I see that most of the Linux flavors being mentioned here are based ultimately on some form of Debian Linux (Ubuntu, Mint, Tails...all Debian-based). This actually COULD be the source of your problem. See, Debian decided in one of those "infinite wisdom" moments to actually use an OLDER Linux kernel for their latest build...and it propagated through most of these OS flavors for quite some time. Ubuntu caught it first, as far as I know; Mint and Tails, to my knowledge, still use the old kernel.

So, your basic problem is Old kernel + new hardware = Kernel panic. Best way around this--if you want a Debian-based form of Linux--is to load one of your live USB distros on your PC and install the .deb package for Linux kernel 4.2 or later. The latest stable version is 4.6.3, and includes support for the latest NVMe drives that Alienware likes to use in their 17 R3 laptops.

Please note that there WILL be some issues with Wifi, Bluetooth, and nVidia graphics working optimally (read: at all) during the initial startup and install. Most of these issues are resolved with firmware-hunting or vendor-specific drivers after a fresh install completes. If you want to keep your Linux on USB only, you will need to enable the "persistence" option when you make the image, so Linux can store these updated configurations to use next time. Otherwise, keep them on a separate medium and suffer through re-installing them every time you boot--or get ready to waste bandwidth.

As for the file system on your USB stick, usually exFAT or FAT32 is used for generic compatibility. If that is failing you, there is probably an issue with your UEFI configuration files--which a firmware update may or may NOT replace during flashing. Try going into your BIOS and removing all the EFI Boot configs (BACKUPS STORED SAFELY FIRST) and then telling BIOS to load default ones. The reason I say this is that I've had lots of kernel panics when my USB Linux is loaded onto NTFS; that file system is "neither fish nor fowl" for Linux in kernel mode, so it tries to work like its on a GFS or similar file system and gets confused by the NTFS journaling (which is hideously over-complicated!), fails to find the file descriptors it needs, and panics. The problem is so bad that Linux users have had a long and torturous journey through the years developing NTFS-3G as a special interface package just so we could mount Windows drives in Linux--I only caught the last 10 years of it, thankfully. I like to think NTFS is the reason Windows has to have that "system reserved" partition set up during a fresh install--B+trees are just too messed up! Distractions aside, you'll want FAT-style file systems for your Linux live USB sticks; if the BIOS won't boot them, then remake them on your PC and be sure the "boot" flag is set on the USB partition. I have four tools for making Linux USB sticks for this very reason: LiLi, YUMI, UUSBI, and Win32DiskImager.

Also be sure that you have Secure Boot and Computrace turned OFF in your UEFI/BIOS settings BEFORE attempting to load any Linux distro--those are Micro$oft "features" that can prevent most other OSs from even loading.  Flavors of Linux built around a 4.2+ kernel should have no other problems with UEFI settings, so Legacy BIOS does not need to be turned on. I know why Secure Boot needs disabling, but Computrace is still a mystery to me; perhaps the two are in the same protected zone on the chip?

Finally, if all else fails, use a "safe mode" setting on your Linux live USB, which should use basic video graphics (low-res 640x480 or some such), no network driver loadings, generic CPU and chipset drivers, etc.  Slackware Linux (Slax.org is my favorite flavor) usually does this just fine to get a Linux boot. There is also a live version of GParted that loads Debian with a Gnome desktop with minimal effort.

As I've droned on enough now, I'll stop the lecture here. Guess a summary would help so people can skip the bulk up persistence" with your USB image to store the new drivers and firmware.

4. DO NOT USE NTFS. Use FAT32 or exFAT. Make sure the "boot" flag is set on the USB image partition--you can do this with most disk partition managers, even diskmgmt.msc in Windows.

5. Turn OFF Secure Boot and Computrace in the BIOS. If your system still won't boot your USB, try removing all the EFI boot configs that are currently loaded in UEFI and then loading default configs from BIOS memory.

6. Lastly, try to start Linux in a "safe mode" setting--or try using Slackware or Slax, or even FreeBSD instead of Debian.

Best of Luck, everybody!

Great, informative post.  Thinking of buying one of these, but want to use both for video and for a coding environment.  (that is, would like dual boot.  maybe run linux VM).