Linux A wee bit of advice to load a linux on this laptop please?

[joeblaze]

i just found this site while looking for help with something else so i thought i would ask advice on this too. i was trying for days and just gave up and put it away. The laptop seem to have very low specs but its running windows 10 as fast as my other laptop which has nearly double the power i think. would it be a modified windows 10 to run on a carp laptop?

its an acer aspire ESI-332 i think the problem is it has some kind of strange hard drive plus its only 30 gb. when i installed ubuntu it install correctly then on restart came withand error - no bootable device.

tbh i dont think they should be allowed to get away with selling these laptops but a family member ask to swap for a tablet i had i think i got the better end of the deal.

if the linux runs decent im gonna put away what is supposed to be the better laptop and use this just because its a lot smaller and i like that about it

cheers

ps when i scanned with the tool on the crucial website they said no upgrades available for this laptop. how do they get away with selling it

 

[fus10n]

Have you ever thought about turning it in to a chromebook?

But if your set on getting linux working, it sounds as if the acer has secure boot enabled. Check this site for some tips on disabling secureboot. Jump to step 5 (assuming you can get into the bios).

 

[Grimeire]

laptops like these usually come with a load of cloud storage and access to Office 365 to counteract the low specs.

regarding your issue, a possible cause that no boot drive is not found is that the boot file is not in the correct location.

assuming you are trying to install Ubuntu confirm that /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi exists so that that the linux distro can boot.

 

[joeblaze]

Have you ever thought about turning it in to a chromebook?

But if your set on getting linux working, it sounds as if the acer has secure boot enabled. Check this site for some tips on disabling secureboot. Jump to step 5 (assuming you can get into the bios).

thanks for your advices man. this laptop is only around a year old. the bios is an updated one to the one used in that page and has no mention of uefi but secure boot is disable and still no joy. i am definitely going to try the laptop as a chromebook though just to see what its like as long as i can change back if i don't fancy it. i have never used one before id like to give it a go for a week or 2 give it a chance to see if i can do the thing i need to. I just need to dig out my windows 10 usb install thing before i start so i can back to the stage im at now. i like messing with these things.

 

[joeblaze]

laptops like these usually come with a load of cloud storage and access to Office 365 to counteract the low specs.

regarding your issue, a possible cause that no boot drive is not found is that the boot file is not in the correct location.

assuming you are trying to install Ubuntu confirm that /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi exists so that that the linux distro can boot.

yes i think there is 100gb of free cloud storage using one drive thats never been used, never used office. ive used ubuntu since 8.04. still haven't much of a clue about command line and stuff everything just worked and every software i needed was available to in the software centre. it is my goal to get ubuntu up and running on this laptop. do you think it would run unity with this low specs? im gonna try the chromebook thing mentioned in the other reply just out of curiosity to try it. even if i do like it ill still be trying your advices just to see if i can get it working cause i put alot of time into it before and couldnt get it going. just another quick question. when im checking if the /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi exists do i have to do it before i reboot after installing or booting with a live cd and making fixes or does it matter. thank you for the advices mate.

 

[Grimeire]

Never heard of unity so I wouldn't know.

when im checking if the /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi exists do i have to do it before i reboot after installing or booting with a live cd and making fixes or does it matter. thank you for the advices mate.

You can do it a few ways. If your bios/efi allows you to boot from a file browse to see if that directory exists from the bios/efi and if the relevent file is in there.

You can also booth from the live CD and as root or SU do the same.

In the bios/efi If you can boot from a file, you can browse to the default location of the Ubuntu boot file and boot Ubuntu. I'll check my notes when I get to my desk with the path and post.

Obviously that method is not really a solution as you will have to.do it every time but at least if you can boot from that default boot file that will confirm the issue is the one I suspect and I will post the command to copy the boot file to the correct directory.

 

[joeblaze]

unity is the desktop that ubuntu uses but having just checked it looks like this laptop does not meet the system requirements due to the processor. it run ok on live cd, it was slower but i expected that on live cd of course. i didn't checked and i should have but i also tried lubuntu and had the same problems with the no bootable device. my goal will be installing lubuntu instead because the laptop meets the system requirements. the same fixes will work for lubuntu to wont they?

thanks bud

 

[Grimeire]

yes it should work with lubuntu.

here are my notes on how to resovle.

#as SU or root

#make directory

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#copy the correct boot file to the new directory.

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/boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi is the file that ubuntu tires to boot from so try booting from that. if it works run the above commands and they will create and move the boot file to the correct location

 

[joeblaze]

i think i could do that no worries. it looks simple enough because of the way u have explain it. Cant wait to give it a go and see..

appreciate the help and making it easy as possibly for me mate. i get a wee bit nervous using the command line even though i have done a bit of reading on it it never sinks in my brain lol.

tyvm @Grimeire and also @fus10n im gonna try out that chromebook thing for sure ive never tried one so i want to see what thats like too. i watch so many things about how windows 10 tracks your shit i want rid of it before i put me bigger laptop away for good.

 

[Grimeire]

appreciate the help and making it easy as possibly for me mate. i get a wee bit nervous using the command line even though i have done a bit of reading on it it never sinks in my brain lol.

Don't be nervous cuz there ain't much you can't fix if you break it in Linux. If you are still worried just dont use it for anything important that way if you mess it up you can just reinstall Linux again.

Best way to learn Commandline is just to install it on a machine and use it. After a while you may prefer it as it just works. There is a commandline(terminal) in all linux distros even the ones with the GUI so you can mess about with the commandline without having to install a non GUI based Linux Distro.

 

[joeblaze]

I can install and uninstall software by the terminal after all those years using it thats as much as i am confident to do it right the rest is a nightmare for me to remember

 

[kevshed]

i installed ubuntu recently on a really old netbook for my son.... its must be 10 years old. What i found initially is that the newer builds are x64 only - but if you look deeper, there are still 32bit images which install and should work fine.

 

[joeblaze]

i could never get this done and have gaven up i think it something to do with the crappy hard drive in it. i have put many hours into this but got fed up now i changeing between 2 laptops which is shite because i like this smaller one better even though the other is much more powerful i think