Literally happened to me two days ago. Everything was fine until i installed gpu drivers and then it said “plz give secure boot password” and i had to abort mid install. Also was infront of a fresh linux recruit.
That secure boot password was probably from akmods preparing its key so that it can sign the kernel module of the driver. This key needs to be loaded into the UEFI to use the driver with secure boot enabled. It shouldn’t affect the bit locker key in theory, but you never know…
Set bios to disable secure boot (warning check if you have bitlocker active before you do that) and install Linux w/o secure boot.
Otherwise, with secureboot: akmod will generate a new key for you and prepare it to be loaded into you UEFI. That key is password protected, which was the password you were asked for. Depending on your distro it might even get loaded automatically on reboot (just follow the menu and enter the password when asked) or you might need to initiate the load with mokutil and a reboot.
Afterwards, akmods will make sure your graphics driver is signed with the corresponding key that is now known and trusted by the UEFI and you can boot with secure boot enabled while still using self compiled kernel modules.
Problem is that kernel modules are seen as part of the kernel and everything must be signed with a key your UEFI trusts when using secure boot. And initially it’s Microsoft’s key, which you will not have access to when using custom kernels/kernel modules/… so you just create your own.
Literally happened to me two days ago. Everything was fine until i installed gpu drivers and then it said “plz give secure boot password” and i had to abort mid install. Also was infront of a fresh linux recruit.
That secure boot password was probably from akmods preparing its key so that it can sign the kernel module of the driver. This key needs to be loaded into the UEFI to use the driver with secure boot enabled. It shouldn’t affect the bit locker key in theory, but you never know…
No bitlocker on that one but it still complained.
Set bios to disable secure boot (warning check if you have bitlocker active before you do that) and install Linux w/o secure boot.
Otherwise, with secureboot: akmod will generate a new key for you and prepare it to be loaded into you UEFI. That key is password protected, which was the password you were asked for. Depending on your distro it might even get loaded automatically on reboot (just follow the menu and enter the password when asked) or you might need to initiate the load with mokutil and a reboot.
Afterwards, akmods will make sure your graphics driver is signed with the corresponding key that is now known and trusted by the UEFI and you can boot with secure boot enabled while still using self compiled kernel modules.
Problem is that kernel modules are seen as part of the kernel and everything must be signed with a key your UEFI trusts when using secure boot. And initially it’s Microsoft’s key, which you will not have access to when using custom kernels/kernel modules/… so you just create your own.