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[SOLVED] Help! I cannot bear Win 8.1 - Installing LL 2.2 on Lenovo U530? - Printable Version

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[SOLVED] Help! I cannot bear Win 8.1 - Installing LL 2.2 on Lenovo U530? - amandasabroad - 01-05-2015

I finally bit the bullet and bought the new computer I've been needing for a while now (my old Compaq took a lot of abuse for as long as the poor thing could). But now that I've finally gotten my new Lenovo, I've been stuck as to how I should go about installing LL 2.2 on it. Below are some links to the exact specs of my model. I don't have any experience with installing on machines that boot UEFI and I would hate to erase or damage the system after only having it a couple weeks!

Ideally I'd like to dual boot Linux with Win 8.1 so I have the choice between operating systems when starting up, but I'm not sure if this is possible with UEFI? I use my computer for work, and will rely heavily on the graphics drivers for editing intensive software and the like. I'm just not sure where to begin. If someone could help shed some light on this for me, I'd be so grateful! I love this distro and can't imagine going back to Mint or Ubuntu.

Thanks in advance! ;D ~ Amanda

Specs:
http://www.theaffordablemarket.com/products/Lenovo-%252d-15.6%22-Touch%252dScreen-Laptop-%252d-Intel-Core-i7-%252d-8GB-Memory-%252d-1TB-Hard-Drive-%252d-Silver-(LENOVO-U530-TOUCH-%252d-59427841).html

http://bestlaptopstore.com/product/lenovo-u530-laptop-computer-touch-59427841-silver-4th-generation-intel-core-i7-4510u-2-00ghz-1600-mhz-4mb/

http://laptoping.com/specs/product/lenovo-u530-touch-59421177/


Re: Help! I cannot bear Win 8.1 - Installing LL 2.2 on Lenovo U530? - rokytnji - 01-05-2015

I don't run any gear newer than Windows 7. So EFI secure boot and UEFI bios is not my usual expertise.
Be patient and wait for the other guys to tell you how to do legacy boot on your computer.
Run live 1st to make sure things work out OK mostly.
Good luck with it.
Happy Trailz, Rok

Re: Help! I cannot bear Win 8.1 - Installing LL 2.2 on Lenovo U530? - amandasabroad - 01-05-2015

[sub]Yeah I figured that'd be a good first step. It's my first Lenovo, but from what I've gathered so far I just have to wait til it's off or suspended, then push a button on the side to get to the boot options / bios menu. From there I can supposedly enable Legacy boot or unsecured (is there a difference?), then restart her up again and I should be able to boot off of a USB / live image. I haven't tried it yet, but I guess that is my next logical step to see how she runs on the live disk. I'm just definitely gonna need help with the actual installation. Lord knows I've screwed the machine I'm currently on so many times by messing up MBRs and whatnot, I just can't get the hang of that it seems Tongue

Thanks for the reply, I'll be sure to wait on some guidance before attempting an install Smile[/sub]

Re: Help! I cannot bear Win 8.1 - Installing LL 2.2 on Lenovo U530? - rokytnji - 01-05-2015

If you have not made the recovery media yet for your new gear.

That would be my 1st step.

Re: Help! I cannot bear Win 8.1 - Installing LL 2.2 on Lenovo U530? - gold_finger - 01-05-2015

  • amandasabroad,

    LL does not yet support installing in UEFI mode, but there is a way to install it in Legacy mode first and then convert it to UEFI mode in order to have dual-booting work correctly with Win 8 (assuming Win 8 is installed in that mode).  I don't have any hands-on experience with UEFI myself, but have guided many people through such installations (on a different distro) so I know a decent amount about the process.  Will try to help you through installation here, but need you to do some things in preparation first and then provide answers to a few questions before we begin.

    To Do in Preparation for Installation:
    • Make a recovery USB for Windows if you haven't already done so.
    • If you have a spare hard drive of equal or greater size to that of laptop, clone the Win 8 drive so you can restore to current state easily instead of having to re-install with recovery USB if everything gets broken.  Two possible cloning programs you could use are:
    • Open Windows disk management and defragment the "C:drive"
    • Still in disk management, shrink C:drive after defrag to make room for Linux installation (you decide how much room you want to allot for Linux -- give at least 20-30GB).  Don't make any Linux partitions -- just leave space unused/unpartitioned.
    • Turn off Fast Startup in Windows.
    • Disable Secure Boot.  Here's another page describing process if needed.
    • If have problems accessing/changing UEFI settings, see if anything on this page helps.
    • Make a live DVD or USB of LL2.2 (make sure you select the 64-bit version).
      • Windows programs to burn image to DVD are listed under "Writing the latest Linux Lite ISO to a CD on Windows".
      • Use UNetBootin or Win32DiskImager if you are creating a live USB.
      • Boot computer with your live medium to test out if LL works.  You will need to use the UEFI Boot Menu and select the none-UEFI boot option mode.  There should be two choices shown for booting the device: one for UEFI mode and one for Legacy mode (but it might not be worded as "Legacy".)

    Answer following questions about how you want to setup your dual-boot installation:
    • Let us know your general level of experience with Linux and Linux installations (not UEFI installs obviously).
    • Do you want to have a shared partition to store data on that can be accessed by both Windows and Linux?
    • Report back whether or not you are able to clone your drive.
    • After booting computer into live LL, open a terminal and enter this command so we can see your current partition structure:
Code:
sudo parted -l
(Last character is a lowercase letter "L", not a number 1.)


After posting back with above, read through this tutorial on installing to GPT partitioned disks in Legacy mode.  Despite the explicit warning about doing this when Windows is on the drive, this is how you are going to need to install LL.  I put the warning on page to make sure people don't accidentally destroy their Windows install by attempting dual-boot without help.

Re: Help! I cannot bear Win 8.1 - Installing LL 2.2 on Lenovo U530? - amandasabroad - 01-05-2015

Hey gold_finger Smile Thanks for the assistance. Something I just noticed on the Lenovo site for my machine is a BIOS update.

Should I consider flashing it before getting started?
These are the two problems this update fixes from the previous version:
-Fix manufacturing process slow download speed issue.
- (Fix) Fixed the issue that bluetooth can't be turned off by setup menu issue.       

Not sure if they seem critical, but I don't know. I'm more of the "pedal to the medal I wish LL was installed so I could run GIMP now" type ;P

On creating the recovery backup:
It's got a big 1TB, which I could clone over to a spare seagate that I have. I haven't messed around in there or downloaded much since buying it, so it's basically at factory install status at the moment. Hopefully shouldn't take too long to clone over.

Another thing I was wondering: This u530 has a hybrid setup with the 1TB HDD and it's 16GB SSD cache, not even sure where to begin with that yet. I guess just leave the spare SSD alone during the entire defrag and shrinking process?

As far as creating the Live USB goes, this machine has no cd drive (seems to be a trend nowadays), so I'll give Unetbootin a shot. I used to create everything with YUMI, but I think it's been deprecated. 

Will report back as soon as the cloning over is through.

As for my general level of experience in Linux:
I've been running in Linux every day for about a year. Though it did take a solid month to finally get the install on this Compaq running smoothly. I've currently got this install setup with an extended partition, home drive separated from the root, and eventually just deleted the swap so now it looks like a strange mess in gparted. I have the vista file system mounting on startup in my user's home folder so I can access the files if I need to from linux. But it doesn't work the other way around (windows can't be booted into and freely access the linux partition because it's ext-4 i believe).

I'd be fine with a similar setup, I currently don't plan on being in Windows much and when I would be, I wouldn't need access to the files I'd have in my Linux user's folders.

Back in a bit with an update and the output of parted, thanks again! Smile

Re: Help! I cannot bear Win 8.1 - Installing LL 2.2 on Lenovo U530? - amandasabroad - 01-05-2015

On easeus.com I downloaded the Both the "Disk Copy Home" and the "Todo Backup Free" and went on to read their standard tutorial but got confused around this part:


[Image: ss1.png]


Not sure if I should be using the Todo or just the Disk Copy Home download.


And the Seagate I have is a 3TB, should I partition it and carve out a TB chunk for windows to fit into first before cloning over? Or should I let the program just clone onto a blank/brand new drive?

Just wondering because I wanna be able to use whatever space is left over to be able to clone over the rest of the hard drives in the house too, but don't know if that'd require some sketching out first.

Another note, when opening up the defrag menu it said all disks were 0% fragmented at the moment, wondering if that gives me a pass or if I should run it anyways?

Re: Help! I cannot bear Win 8.1 - Installing LL 2.2 on Lenovo U530? - gold_finger - 01-05-2015

(01-05-2015, 08:46 PM)amandasabroad link Wrote: Should I consider flashing it before getting started?
These are the two problems this update fixes from the previous version:
-Fix manufacturing process slow download speed issue.
- (Fix) Fixed the issue that bluetooth can't be turned off by setup menu issue.       

Not sure if they seem critical, but I don't know.

If you plan to update the UEFI firmware, might be better to do it now vs. later.  If those issues are not a concern for you then don't worry about it.


(01-05-2015, 08:46 PM)amandasabroad link Wrote: Another thing I was wondering: This u530 has a hybrid setup with the 1TB HDD and it's 16GB SSD cache, not even sure where to begin with that yet. I guess just leave the spare SSD alone during the entire defrag and shrinking process?

Yes, just leave it alone.  I have no experience with that type of setup, but shouldn't need to touch the SSD for LL install.


(01-05-2015, 08:46 PM)amandasabroad link Wrote: As far as creating the Live USB goes, this machine has no cd drive (seems to be a trend nowadays), so I'll give Unetbootin a shot. I used to create everything with YUMI, but I think it's been deprecated.

Haven't used YUMI myself, but if you prefer that go ahead and try it.  If doesn't work, use UNetbootin.


(01-05-2015, 08:46 PM)amandasabroad link Wrote: I've currently got this install setup with an extended partition, home drive separated from the root, and eventually just deleted the swap so now it looks like a strange mess in gparted....

I'd be fine with a similar setup,....

Alright, then we won't bother setting up a "data" partition and just stick to Root, Home.  As long as you don't plan to use hibernate feature and have plenty of RAM available you can skip Swap altogether.  (I usually make a small Swap just in case it's ever needed -- you might want to just do a 1GB Swap.)


(01-05-2015, 09:06 PM)amandasabroad link Wrote: On easeus.com I downloaded the Both the "Disk Copy Home" and the "Todo Backup Free" and went on to read their standard tutorial but got confused around this part:

I've never used Easeus myself and am not entirely sure which part you're confused about.  From screenshot message, it seems to just be warning you that once the clone is made you will likely run into problems if both the original drive and the clone are connected when you try booting the computer.  That's because the UEFI firmware will see both drives (as identical) and not know which to boot from, or it may try booting from both, or just get generally confused (I don't know).  That's really all it's saying -- only boot computer with one or the other, not both.  Might be a good idea to disconnect original drive and test out the clone to make sure it works before proceeding.  Then just put original back.


(01-05-2015, 09:06 PM)amandasabroad link Wrote: Not sure if I should be using the Todo or just the Disk Copy Home download.

Again, I've never used it myself but from brief description on page it looks like the "EaseUS Disk Copy" version is what you want.  It says it is a "sector-by-sector" 100% identical copy to the original -- that's what you want.


(01-05-2015, 09:06 PM)amandasabroad link Wrote: And the Seagate I have is a 3TB, should I partition it and carve out a TB chunk for windows to fit into first before cloning over? Or should I let the program just clone onto a blank/brand new drive?

I've only toyed around with cloning once or twice and only did it for a specific partition, but I believe easiest thing to do would be to just wipe out what's on disk, use GParted to create a fresh GPT partition table on it and then leave it blank (without any partitions).  GParted -> Device -> Create Partition Table -> "gpt"(from drop-down menu) -> OK.  (May not even need to do that, but I'd do it anyway just in case.)  Cloning process will then just create exact duplicates of all partitions on original and (I believe) will leave rest of drive space unpartitioned.  (If I'm wrong about that I'm sure someone will chime in to correct me.)  You should be able to clone other things to that free space later.  BUT ... in that case, I would make a new post asking for advice on how to add new clones to same drive as this one because I'm not sure about best way to do that.  If other drives are using MBR partitions and you try to clone them to the clone drive using GPT partitions, I'm not sure that would work.  I don't know if it is possible to mix partition types on the same drive.  That's something you'll need to find answer to because I suspect your other computers are using MBR partitions.


(01-05-2015, 09:06 PM)amandasabroad link Wrote: Another note, when opening up the defrag menu it said all disks were 0% fragmented at the moment, wondering if that gives me a pass or if I should run it anyways?

Sounds like you can skip it and just go ahead with shrinking.


Don't forget to post back with output from "parted -l" command.

Re: Help! I cannot bear Win 8.1 - Installing LL 2.2 on Lenovo U530? - amandasabroad - 01-06-2015

Sector by sector, gotcha. After going back and reading that screenshot again it's meaning clicked. I can get pretty durrr sometimes.

I will go ahead and make a new post on partitioning the Seagate. We've got about five chromebook drives to back up onto it, and they might be using GPT tables but I'll triple check all that.

Back in a bit, thanks for the clarifications.

Re: Help! I cannot bear Win 8.1 - Installing LL 2.2 on Lenovo U530? - gold_finger - 01-06-2015

You can just boot up a live Linux DVD/USB (if they're not running Linux already) and run "sudo parted -l" command to see which partition type is being used.  Here's an example of first few lines from that command with area you need to look at highlighted in red:

Model: ATA WDC WD3200BEKT-2 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 320GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos


Just in case you are all set to go with installation and I'm not able to get back on forum in timely manner, I'm going to post instructions for installing and converting now.

To Install
Just follow this tutorial.  That will get you installed in legacy mode.  If for some reason the partitioning software of the installer (or GParted itself) does not "see" your Windows partitions -- do not proceed.  Just stop and report back here.

Once install is done, you'll need to go into main UEFI settings and turn off UEFI booting -- or set for Legacy/CSM (not sure what the wording will be on that).  Only then will you be able to boot into the LL installation.  Otherwise it will just boot straight into Windows as if nothing else is there.

To Convert to UEFI
When you've got it booted into LL, open GParted (Menu->System->Partition Drives) and look at the drive partitions.  You want to find out which partition is the "EFI System Partition".  It should be one of the first two partitions on the drive and it will be a small (100-500MB) FAT32 formatted partition.  Make a mental note of which partition that is because you will need to know that for the conversion process.  (NOTE:  There may also be a small NTFS formatted partition present on drive also -- that is not the one you want.)

Then, just follow instructions I posted on this thread (starting with step #4 in your case) to convert your install to UEFI mode.

If you've got any questions about anything before you start, feel free to ask.


P.s.  If this method does not work to convert the installation, there is another way that will but it is more complicated.  We'll cross that bridge later if necessary.