Hugh, I am documenting my Linux installs on my website. I have had some time on my hands recently, so I have tried installing stuff on my old 32-bit Lenovo Thinkpad.
http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson/Linux.html#NewUsers Ubuntu and Fedora worked nicely in a beginner installation. We need to build a library of this stuff. On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:51:00 -0500 (EST) "D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk" <talk@gtalug.org> wrote: > I recently bought an Acer Spin 1 SP111-31-P95J refurbished netbook. > <https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=710_374&item_id=117446> > So far, I quite like it. > > Those are gone but a slightly inferior model is available for a better > price ($200): > <https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=710_374&item_id=120108> > > Why should you consider this: > > + nice size (11.6") and weight > > + FullHD (i.e. 1920x1080) IPS screen (IPS makes the display a lot > better). Some people think that this resolution is too high for > this size. I like it a lot. It's a matter of personal taste so > don't take my word for it. FullHD + IPS is quite rare on this class > of machine and even more rare at this price. > > + no fan! > > + folds almost 360 degrees (I don't care) > > + 4G RAM. That's twice what the cheapest netbooks have had. I find that > it makes a big difference in Firefox (at least the way I use it) > > + 64G eMMC (disk). That's twice what the cheapest netbooks have. It > should even be enough for a dual boot Win 10 / Linux system but it > isn't generous for dual-boot. It's plenty for Linux. eMMC is slower > than SATA of NVMe SSDs. Like most netbooks these days, the eMMC cannot > be upgraded. > > - CPU is only a Celeron N3350 (dual core). That's good for electricity > consumption and cooling but not a powerhouse for computation. > > + the Battery last quite some time -- way more than 4 hours. > > + supports 802.11ac > > + it seems to have been refurbed by the manufacturer and has a full year > warranty. Mine sure looked as if it was never used. This model isn't > current so they might just have been store returns. > > + 1 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0 > > - no ethernet > > ================ War Story ================ > > Adventures installing Linux on this netbook (condensed version). > > a) freshening up Windows and firmware > > After first boot, I did all updates. This requires you toask several > times for updates since it will install a bunch and (incorrectly) say > your system is up to date. Don't believe it. > > I updated the firmware too. This requires Windows, as far as I can > tell. You have to hunt for the update on the Acer site. > > This whole process is excruciatingly slow and requires way too many > user interventions. Allocate a day to babysit it. > > Don't bother with the Windows updates if you are just going to blow > Windows away. But I would do the firmware update in any case. > > > b) booting a live Fedora 29 installation medium > > Note 1: this thing should be used as a modern UEFI system. I don't > even remember whether there is an option for legacy emulation (i.e. a CSM > and support for an MBR system disk). > > Note 2: a number of useful settings in the firmware setup page are only > enabled if you set an administrator password (you set it in the > firmware setup page). > > A Fedora live USB stick is made by downloading the .iso file and > dd-ing it onto the raw USB drive. > > The Acer just will not boot such a stick. Apparently the same thing > happens with an Ubuntu installation disk. Linuxium (that's his nom de > guerre) has a tool that apparently doctors such a USB to be bootable. > He says that this is a generic Apolo Lake problem but I am skeptical. > I think that it is an Insyde Firmware bug. > > My solution was to burn a DVD from the .iso and boot from that. I > could do this because I have an external DVD drive. Note: the image > is too large for a CD. > > > c) making room on the disk > > When installing Linux on a Windows system to create a dual boot > system, you need a way to divide disk space. > > - Windows needs at least 32G of disk; a nice Linux needs close to that > too. > > - Windows comes with a tool that can shrink an NTFS parition. > Unfortunately it is unwilling to shrink down to 50% or less. I think > that is because certain metadata is smack dab in the middle of the > filesystem and is marked as unmovable. > > - I use gparted to change NTFS partition sizes, especially when > Windows won't. It seems to damage the FS but if you immediately > reboot Windows after resizing, Windows will repair the damage. > > This time, when I rebooted Windows after gparted-resizing, Windows > could not fix the NTFS partition. I gave up and blew Windows away. > After all, I wasn't really going to use it and the disk space would be > better used by Linux. > > I should have made a re-installation disk before I resized the > partition, but I did not. > > > d) installing Linux > > No problem. > > > e) booting the installed linux > > I placed Linux ahead of Windows in the boot sequence. But the firmware > always altered it to put Windows first. Crazy. Especially when there is > no Windows (but I had left bits of it in the EFI System Partition > (/boot/efi)). > > I could hit F5 on boot and specify booting Linux, but this is silly. > > My crude fix was to rename the Microsoft directory on the EFI System > Partition to "Macrosoft", thereby hiding it from the bootloader. > --- > Talk Mailing List > talk@gtalug.org > https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk -- Howard Gibson hgib...@eol.ca jhowardgib...@gmail.com http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson --- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk