[GTALUG] good deal on netbook; war story: putting Fedora on it

[Howard Gibson]

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 at 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.
> ---
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-- 
Howard Gibson 
hgibson at eol.ca
jhowardgibson at gmail.com
http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson