Installing LL to Intel Atom laptop

[Alan C]

Hi everyone,
I'd love to try LL on my old laptop, but I need a little help with installation. I'm using a Lenovo Ideapad 100S, with an Intel Atom processor. They're difficult Linux installs. As I understand it, I need to "respin" the ISO to accommodate the way my machine boots (there are instructions at https://linuxiumcomau.blogspot.com/. Simpler instructions for a Lubuntu respin are at https://everythingisamiracleblog.wordpre...00s-11iby/).

I don't fully understand the procedure as described by Linuxium, to be honest, and I don't have a Linux machine available. I _think_ all that needs to be done is to download and run a shell script, with some parameters. I'm hoping that is not burdensome and someone would be willing to "respin" an LL ISO for me (and others using the same processor). You can pick the distro that would be best for a 2016 laptop with 2 GB RAM, perhaps an ISO you've already downloaded.

If what I'm asking for is actually more work than I think, just ignore my message! I'm not trying to get someone to do a lot of work for me.

[firenice03]

[member=49923]Alan C[/member]
If this is a 32-bit system, LL will not work. 32bit was EOL with LL3.8
If its a 64bit OS with the 32bit UEFI bootloader.... I think (at least the previous series) the 32bit grub etc etc is included and "should" install as normal or close to normal.
- Been a while since I last played with but was testing on a tablet with 32bit UEFI and installed...

[Alan C]

It's 64 bit with 32 bit UEFI. I guess I should try a "normal" installation from a USB stick and see what happens!
Thanks for responding.

[WytWun]

One resource I have to hand about adding 32bit UEFI to Ubuntu derived ISOs I have to hand is this Linuxium post though it shouldn't take much searching to find others.  I have a 32bit UEFI netbook that Lite 5.x installed on without too much drama, so when I get around to updating that I'll be headed down the same path...

[Alan C]

So I was able to follow the suggestions and create an ISO with WytWun's Linuxium link, and then a USB stick with the ISO via Etcher. I was able to start the laptop and load the OS. Upon restart, however, I get the message
"Default Boot Device Missing or Boot Failed.
Insert Recovery Media and Hit any key.
Then Select 'Boot Manager' to choose a new Boot Device or to Boot Recovery Media."
Anything I try after that just gets me an 'ubuntu failed to boot' message. I tried with both enabled and disabled secure boot; no luck.

Eventually I restarted with the Etcher USB stick, which booted OK, and reinstalled LL. ... No difference. Same error messages, same issues.

Any thoughts?

[WytWun]

Sounds like the 32bit UEFI loader file isn't being copied from the USB drive to the installation drive.  You can boot the USB drive you already have into the live session and then mount the MMC drive to inspect and modify it.  My last set of hassles were with Lite 5.0 RC1 so I'm not fluent enough to give detailed advice, and unfortunately I'm not going to get the chance to try and install 6.0 on my 100S for a few weeks to no doubt experience what you've encountered.

As an interim measure, both to confirm you can succeed and also help you confirm what the UEFI System Partition contents should be, you might want to consider trying to install a 5.x image.  I successfully installed 5.0 on my Ideapad 100S-11IBY so I'm confident that works (though I had to use Rufus rather than Etcher) and I was able to upgrade through the 5.x series without any trouble, but I don't have any experience installing 5.[2|4|6|8] images on this hardware.

Another article which might be useful is here, which attacks the problem by modifying the USB installation driver rather than the ISO.  This article is a bit dated now and your reported boot failure symptoms don't match those described in the article (or my grub issue with 5.0RC1 for that matter) but it describes some of the techniques for getting the installed system to boot.

[Alan C]

Thank you, WytWun! The link you provided was _very_useful. Funny thing I found it myself (linked from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/installin...erga-ayuso), just a few minutes (literally) before getting your message! Using that as a starting point I was able to install a copy of Lubuntu. Soon I will see if I can follow a similar procedure and install Lite. I'll take your advice and try installing something from the 5.x series rather than 6.0.

Also, you should know I found your text at https://www.freecinema2022.gq/forums/linux...-test-150/ to also be useful. My hero 

EDIT: With the help of links like the ones in this message & thread, I successfully installed LL 5.x! Yay! .... Thank you everyone.

[WytWun]

I've been able to get Lite 6.0 installed on my Ideapad 100S-11IBY but I went down a few rabbit holes in the process...

I still have a Windows system and used the following Windows tools:
- 7Zip (which can open and extract files from ISO and VFAT images)
- Rufus (the default file copy mode leaves the USB drive contents modifiable which is crucial for this exercise)

The Windows system was used for all USB stick writing and modifications.

WARNING: For the process documented below to work Secure Boot must be disabled!

In postmortem, as best I can determine the process that worked in the end would look like this:

1) download the MX-Linux 21.1 Xfce x64 ISO image and write it to the USB stick with Rufus, then use the USB stick to install MX on the Ideapad; confirm that MX Linux boots normally after installation

2) write the Lite 6.0 ISO image to the USB stick with Rufus using the default ISO image/file copy mode, leaving the USB stick mounted after Rufus completes so that the USB stick is visible in Windows Explorer as "Linux Lite 6.0"

3) open the MX Linux ISO image with 7Zip and extract the following files to the specified locations on the USB stick, overwriting any existing files:
- \EFI\BOOT\BOOTia32.efi  ->  \EFI\boot
- \boot\grub\i386-efi -> \boot\grub
- \boot\grub\efi.img -> \boot\grub

4) boot the modified Lite USB stick in the Ideapad (use F12 during initial power-up to get to the list of bootable drives and select the USB drive) selecting the Lite Live option (not the direct install option!)

5) once you have the Lite Live desktop up use the install facility to install Lite, however you must select the "something else" option for disk partitioning

6) Lite's installer should allow you to select the MX Linux partition as the install destination, mounted at the root directory ("/") and requiring formatting; leave the "ESP" (aka Windows Boot Manager) partition as is without formatting - keep a note of the disk device name and partition number of the ext4 partition (in my case this was /dev/mmcblk2p3)

7) proceed with the rest of the installation, however don't select the option to reboot once the installation is complete - select the option to continue with the Live desktop

8 ) from the Live desktop, start a terminal

9) in the terminal enter the commands:

Code:

sudo mkdir mnt
sudo mount <ext4_partition_device> mnt
sudo cp -a /cdrom/boot/grub/i386-efi mnt/boot/grub
sudo umount mnt
sudo rmdir mnt
sudo efibootmgr -v

IMPORTANT: in the mount command, use the device name for the ext4 partition on which Lite is installed noted in step 6) above in place of <ext4_partition_device> - on my system this was /dev/mmcblk2p3

10) note the boot id of the MX boot entry in the efibootmgr output; for each of the other disk based entries (leave the remote boot and USB boot options active) use the following command to set them inactive (replace "?" with the entry id, leading 0s not required)

Code:

sudo efibootmgr -A -b ?

NB: active entries are marked with an asterisk; the objective is to have the MX boot entry be the only active local disk boot entry

11) close the terminal and restart, removing the USB drive when prompted - if all has worked as expected, the Lite GRUB screen should be displayed and Lite should boot normally

This process leaves some EFI boot entries in place that could be deleted, and future upgrades to Lite 7 etc will almost certainly involve a similar process however future Lite 6.x in-place upgrades should work without any problems. Famous last words I know... :

In hindsight, this process worked because of the leftover MX components in the EFI System Partition (ESP).  Unfortunately I don't see an easy way to achieve the same effect without the prior MX Linux installation as these components aren't included in the Lite ISO and don't seem to be easily accessible in the MX ISO (GRUB seems to do some funky things during it's installation process from what I've discovered so far).

Edit: add Secure Boot warning

[Valtam]

Excellent [member=6968]WytWun[/member]