Dual-booting Debian with Windows 8 on Acer E3-111?
OK, so I have this cheap and cheerful laptop from Acer and I want to use Debian on it. The problem is that I also want to keep the Windows install for both warranty reasons (for ease even if not legally required) and because the Windows install has its uses at the moment.
I have googled this but the majority of what I see about dual booting Debian with Windows 8 seem to be videos which make assumptions and must be followed to the letter. So, please, does anyone have any advice on how I can proceed without nuking the Windows install? It has a 500GB (spinning rust, unfortunately) HDD so there is room but I fear that messing with the partitions will incur the wrath of secureboot and I'll lose Windows. So, for example, can I take a backup to a USB stick in such a way that I will be able to restore my system should the inevitable happen? Thanks in advance for any ideas and advice. I wasn't sure whether to post this under the laptop forum or the Debian forum but I think it is best here as I would like to run Debian not whatever is easiest. |
My Asus X551MA has similar specs. The first thing you should do is to go in to BIOS and turned off quick boot and secure boot since they make it where only Windows can boot. It will still be UEFI, and Windows should still boot. Now the tricky part - getting a UEFI Debian installer on a USB stick. (By the way, what version of Debian are you planning on using?)
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Many thanks for the reply.
While it is obviously cheap I to like the machine so far (apart from the capacitive touch pad but that's another story) though as somebody who used to work for a VAR and take Acer warranty calls fairly regularly I do worry about longevity. I found my way into the BIOS and managed to boot a (Wheezy, I think it was) USB stick so I have that covered, thankfully. At one point before that I changed a BIOS setting which looked like it turned off secure boot but the machine still booted into Windows so I'm not sure what it really does. The aim is to run Sid as I tend to do when I can. |
Now I'm really stumped.
I switched to legacy boot and booted successfully booted the Debian 7.6 live DVD image from a 2GB USB2 stick, then inserted a 32GB USB3 stick (for some reason the machine only sees the 2GB stick to boot from when the 32GB one is absent) and ran the installer selecting the 32GB stick as the target. All went well until the GRUB installation when the installer insisted on trying to "install GRUB to master boot record" but by that it meant /dev/sda rather than either the drive it booted from or the drive I was installing to. Is this a "feature" of the Debian installer that it isn't able to install a boot loader to a partition of choice but just defaults to something at random? |
You're in legacy mode, which means it wants to install an MBR grub, not a gpt grub. MBR grub will only want to be installed into the MBR of the disk unless you tell it you are using another bootloader.
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Well, yes, I am in legacy mode but then why can't the installer install GRUB to the MBR of the disk it managed to install the whole OS to? My secondary question was why can't I choose which disk to install the GRUB loader to?
Do I turn off Secure Boot but leave EFI on then boot fro ma Debian installer instead? I even tried booting into the live USB then chrooting into the install and trying install-grub from there but whilst it didn't complain it also didn't work on reboot. |
It's going to be easier to chroot with a disk that will boot to efi like ubuntu or debian testing.
Did you create an efi-partition? Quote:
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It would be quicker, for now at least, though if the installer let one choose where to put GRUB. Is this something that was phased out in the name of simplification? Should I be using an alternative install CD or DVD image? |
You can always try this as I stated in first post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLlOd-a2wG0 |
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You have 3 choices chroot, reinstall with standard wheezy iso or forget it. The chroot method does work? what is the difference in your partitioning scheme? If you choose to install with standard iso, use dd instead of unetbootin so you can get the advanced options. Although I believe if you use standard install you still can choose where to load bootloader. |
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I'm not sure which one I found, but I did find a UEFI installer of Debian that worked great (and before that I found 3 that didn't work at all). I've used it to successfully install my laptop #3 in dual boot with Windows 8 (since that firmware actually doesn't have a legacy mode at all).
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Thanks EDDY1, the standard install disc does, indeed, allow me to install GRUB to my USB3 stick and, so, boot from it instead of the hard drive.
Unfortunately I am now having problems getting the Broadcom wireless networking to work under Debian so it looks like I'll be stuck with Debian in a VM for some time. I suppose this is what one gets for buying cheap rubbish. |
Which chip is it? A lot of the broadcom chips nowadays just need firmware to work.
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After dealing with devices which just work with the non-free packages installed it is somewhat frustrating. I'm in the Windows install at the moment and it's downloading updates so I might not get a chance to check the chipset this evening unless I can workout how to list the hardware under Windows properly and not just get "Wireless Adaptor" when I look in Control Panel. |
OK, so I'm posting from the Debian install and the wireles card is:
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https://packages.debian.org/jessie/broadcom-sta-common |
It's not supported by broadcom sta, you have to buid it.
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.p...109498#p520911 It's a .deb file so use gdebi to do it for you. https://mega.co.nz/#!qIUySZYJ!PgfNRV...bU-houaQ97c0yM |
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Here's a better 1 use the ubuntu drivers explained here.
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Instal...kPad_Edge_E135 |
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I'm gong to mark this thread as solved since I had to ditch the piece of trash laptop and I would guess that the answers given would have allowed me to install Debian on it and get wireless working.
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