Hi: I have an Acer Aspire One Cloudbook 14, with Intel Celeron CPU @1.60MHz, RAM = 2GB. In place of a hard disk, there is an electronic device called eMMC of 32GB. I think it's flash ROM. Except for capacity I think I am not so bad: https://www.computerworld.com/articl...sk-drives.html

The question is: can Linux be installed in this machine. Or more generally, can any other OS except Windows be installed (it runs Windows 10)?

Your link . Though OK.; Does not help much. I have installed Linux on mmc drives. The trick is. Or show stopper. Is when a netbook has 32 bit bios on a 64 bit motherboard. And bios is locked into using Windows.

Some IBM netbooks suffer this malady. I am not super sure about Acer Cloudbooks.

Seems they are free of this issue.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comme...top_that_runs/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kzz6FyLm_c

Edit. Forgot to mention. I leave a big sd card in something like this netbook. For extra storage since the mmc is only 32 gigs.

As above you sometimes get the 32 bit 64 bit loader issue but I think that tends to be only lower model atoms.

You also may have to load a uefi OS. Some of these emmc drives are only available under uefi boot.

I bought a few similar desktop systems and the first thing I did was load linux on one.

Watch out for many uefi boot entries. Some of these bios's remember every uefi device.
Can use efi command line tools or linux efibootmgr to fix.

Thank you very much for the links. Well, I'd like to install linux on this notebook but as win 10 runs reasonably well on it, a question: how could I preserve windows 10 in case I wanted to reinstall it? To squeeze the Windows partition, which is the whole disk (32GB) would leave little room for my data.

Might be best to run a usb real install of linux. On a fast usb and usb3 connection it might run as well as can be expected on desktop use.

To save the entire image you may wish to use tools either in windows or linux.

If you have some remote or usb drives you might get a free copy of Acronis. Really a good product (I have no connection to them).

Otherwise you can use windows backup means. Currently easy to make or get a bootable windows usb that can restore.

You can use the command dd on that internal drive using linux. Be careful with dd. Usually a command line that has both dd and compression might speed up transfer.

You might be able to use things like clonezilla to copy windows.

Do you mean a pendrive or an USB connected hard disk?

It would just be easier to run Linux persistence off of external sd or usb like I did long ago if wanting to keep Windows 10 on the mmc drive. Then use bios to pick what boots.

https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/i...g3875/#msg3875

I used a 8 gig drive. You can go bigger if you wish. I ran that way till I could afford a SSD drive for that net book.
There was no Windows to save in my case.

If you have a new fast usb flash or a usb hard drive they should act the same to modern linux.

I personally prefer real installs to a usb. Makes it easier to update, install programs correctly.

A live to usb creates these usb persistence installs. They have a compressed image and can seem to run faster. They won't update the files inside this original live image like kernel. They are good for short term.

I think I've found a solution for backing up Windows 10: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10
And I only need an 8GB USB flash drive!

I backed mine up with dd but a good thing about windows is they have documentation and ways to backup and recover from disaster.

This thread is obsolete. If you wish to post in it please go to https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...4/#post5818610. Thanks.

You expect people here to keep trying to help you when you keep posting dup threads??

Then you say the thread is "obsolete" after people have replied to try and help you? It's pretty rude to the people in this thread above, who have given you their time to try and help you. Wouldn't you say?

Thread and OP reported.