Installing 12.04 LTS on Windows 8 XPS 13 (no dual boot)

Here's what i have in BIOS ( on the "boot" menu )

Secure Boot "Disabled"

Load Legacy Option Rom "Enabled"

Boot List Option "Legacy"

Is that what you have?  Also try both sides of the USB ( I read a few reports that said it wouldn't work on the USB3 side or something )

search for my other posts here - I think I wrote down what i did.  Definitely had to take BIOS out of UEFI mode and enable the legacy stuff, then that allowed me to boot from a usb key.  

i did what you are trying  ( except i went to 13.10 or really linux mint ) i can't see going back to 12.04 ... too old!

are you catching the boot options screen with F12 during the boot process?  ( you see that after enabling the legacy stuff and turning off UEFI ... or at least that was my memory )  sorry ... i didn't do a good job documenting what i did.  but its definitely possible!

I have the exact settings in the BIOS.  I've tried both USB ports with the same result.  About to just try it in UEFI mode as it's seeming impossible to boot off USB in legacy mode.

I'm hitting F12 when I do boot up and choose the usb device and still get "operation system not found".  I've also tried the removable device choice but neither allows me to boot off the usb key while the BIOS is set to legacy mode.  I get the same when I try to boot from either USB port.

huh.  not sure.  i can't remember doing anything else - although I remember getting "operating system not found" once or twice before I got it to boot off my usb key, but those are my settings in BIOS and seemed to work ok for me.

pretty sure i gave up on using the windows "shift restart" thing ... and just used F12 from a cold boot.  

sorry, wish i could be of more assistance.

OK, I went ahead and installed 12.04 in UEFI mode and everything installed fine.  Booted up and am having the standard dim display issue.  Added the sputnik ppa's, sudo apt-get update but they're not installing as I still have a dim display and jumpy trackpad.  Does anyone know how long it takes for the ppa's to be seen by the system?  I've done multiple sudo apt-get updates and reboots (just to make sure) but still nothing.  Thanks.

after sudo apt-get update, you need to do a sudo apt-get upgrade to get it to actually install the new packages.  

there is no such thing as a delayed install ... you do apt-get update, then upgrade and the packages will either install or not.   ( I guess there is the outside chance that the source is unavailable during install, so it could be skipped ... but really not normal )

you can check the status of an individual package with sudo apt-cache show packagename -- that will tell you the status.  ( I don't know what packages exactly you might get from the sputnik ppas ... but you could find one and see )

when you run apt-get update, check that you don't see any errors downloading the packages, and also check that you see the sputnik ppa being loaded.  ( same with upgrade )

you might try using the graphical package manager to be sure-- it could be easier to confirm that you have the ppa loaded correctly there.

I would suggest loading a newer version of Ubuntu - the PPA is basically not needed anymore from what I can see ( it was designed for 12.04 and the OLD XPS 13 ... so it really doesn't have any relevance to the newer haswell one )  at least that's my understanding.

Sorry, I guess I should have said that I did sudo apt-get upgrade, my bad.  I've done the commands multiple times but it still seems like it isn't recognizing the ppa's.  I left it on over night as I read someone else had this issue where the ppa packages didn't download until about 6 hours later.  There was a kernel upgrade when I checked this morning but I'm guessing it was a standard ubuntu upgrade as my screen is still dim and the trackpad is still jumpy.  I'll keep an eye on it every now and then but am pretty much gonna ignore it until 14.04 comes out.