A step-by-step guide to installing NixOS on the Lenovo ThinkPad E485 (AMD Ryzen / Vega GPU), including fixing the common EFI boot failure after installation via Ventoy.

After installing NixOS from a Ventoy USB stick, the system boots into the bootloader menu correctly, but then hangs with:

EFI stub: Loaded initrd from LINUX_EFI_INITRD_MEDIA_GUID device path

This message itself is not the error — the system silently hangs after it. The root cause is that the installer (running from Ventoy) does not correctly detect all required kernel modules for the initrd, so the kernel cannot mount the root filesystem after boot.

Flash the NixOS ISO to a USB stick using Ventoy. Boot with these kernel parameters (add them in the GRUB menu by pressing e):

ivrs_ioapic[32]=00:14.0 spec_store_bypass_disable=prctl

These parameters fix IOMMU/IOAPIC mapping issues specific to this AMD platform.

Proceed with the graphical installer as usual (partitioning, user setup, etc.).

After installation, do not reboot yet (or boot back into the live ISO if you already rebooted and got stuck).

Open a terminal and run:

lsblk -f

You should see something like:

nvme0n1
├─nvme0n1p1   vfat   FAT32          # EFI partition
├─nvme0n1p2   ext4         root     # root partition
└─nvme0n1p3   swap                  # swap

mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot
nixos-enter

nano /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

Add or fix the following options. Make sure the option name is availableKernelModules (with an s at the end — a common typo from the graphical installer):

# Lenovo E485 — required kernel modules for initrd
boot.initrd.availableKernelModules = [
  "nvme"        # critical — needed to access the NVMe root partition
  "xhci_pci"
  "ahci"
  "usb_storage"
  "sd_mod"
  "amdgpu"
];

boot.initrd.kernelModules = [ "amdgpu" ];

boot.kernelParams = [
  "ivrs_ioapic[32]=00:14.0"
  "spec_store_bypass_disable=prctl"
];

# Bootloader
boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable = true;
boot.loader.efi.canTouchEfiVariables = true;

Save with Ctrl+O, then Ctrl+X.

nixos-rebuild switch

The build will succeed even if you see Error: Failed to open dbus connection at the end — this is expected inside nixos-enter (no systemd running). The system configuration is built correctly.

NIXOS_INSTALL_BOOTLOADER=1 /nix/var/nix/profiles/system/bin/switch-to-configuration boot

You should see:

Copied systemd-bootx64.efi to /boot/EFI/systemd/systemd-bootx64.efi
Copied systemd-bootx64.efi to /boot/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI
Created EFI boot entry "Linux Boot Manager".

exit
reboot

Remove the Ventoy USB during reboot. The system should now boot into NixOS normally.

When installing via Ventoy, the live system uses its own storage drivers. nixos-generate-config may not detect nvme as a required initrd module because the installer itself doesn't use it directly. Without nvme in boot.initrd.availableKernelModules, the kernel loads the initrd successfully (hence the EFI stub message), but then cannot find the root partition — and hangs silently.

If the system still freezes after booting, try adding one of these to boot.kernelParams:

"amd_iommu=pt"   # passthrough mode, less strict IOMMU
"nomodeset"      # disable GPU modesetting (for debugging only)

• NixOS Manual
• NixOS Wiki — Bootloader
• NixOS Wiki — AMD GPU
• NixOS Discourse — EFI stub boot hang

If you have a ThinkPad E485 and found additional fixes or improvements, feel free to open a PR or issue.

Tested with NixOS 25.11 (graphical installer) on Lenovo ThinkPad E485, April 2026.

This repo also contains a full NixOS flake configuration for the ThinkPad E485, ready to use after the initial installation is fixed.

nixos-thinkpad-e485/
├── flake.nix                  # entry point — defines all hosts
├── flake.lock                 # pinned nixpkgs version (auto-generated)
├── hosts/
│   └── e485/
│       ├── default.nix        # E485-specific boot fixes and AMD GPU config
│       └── hardware.nix       # generated by nixos-generate-config
└── modules/
    ├── common.nix             # user, locale, SSH, PipeWire
    ├── desktop.nix            # KDE Plasma 6, Nerd Fonts
    ├── packages.nix           # all applications
    └── shell.nix              # zsh + oh-my-zsh + autosuggestions

On your installed NixOS system, open a terminal and run:

# Install git if not already available
nix-shell -p git

# Files correct structure:
# 
# flake.nix
# hosts/e485/default.nix
# hosts/e485/hardware.nix
# modules/common.nix
# modules/desktop.nix
# modules/packages.nix
# modules/shell.nix

Add this to your current /etc/nixos/configuration.nix if not already present:

nix.settings.experimental-features = [ "nix-command" "flakes" ];

Apply it:

sudo nixos-rebuild switch

Directly from the remote repo (no clone needed - but u need flag, and lock is not used!):

sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake github:Cycuszek/nixos-thinkpad-e485#e485 --no-write-lock-file

Or clone locally and rebuild (recommended — faster, works offline):

git clone https://github.com/Cycuszek/nixos-thinkpad-e485.git ~/nixos-config
cd ~/nixos-config
sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#e485

After the first rebuild, set your user password once:

passwd cyc # CHANGE cyc in #common.nix and #shell.nix to YOUR_USERNAME # if you fork it ;)

This survives all future rebuilds — NixOS never touches /etc/shadow during rebuild.

cd ~/nixos-config
# edit any .nix file
git add . && git commit -m "describe your change"
sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#e485
git push

Once you are using zsh, the shell alias rebuild (defined in shell.nix) runs the rebuild in one word.

The hardware.nix file contains disk UUIDs. These are safe to commit publicly — UUIDs are not passwords or encryption keys. They are visible to anyone who can run lsblk -f on the machine.

Never commit to a public repo:

• User passwords or password hashes (hashedPassword)
• SSH private keys
• API tokens or secrets
• LUKS encryption keys

If you have a ThinkPad E485 and found additional fixes or improvements, feel free to open a PR or issue.

Tested with NixOS 25.11 (graphical installer) on Lenovo ThinkPad E485, April 2026.