Hello, in a moment of madness and thanks to a massive discount, I've just bought a Packard Bell EasyNote TE 11BZ-11206G50Mnks from Tesco, full specs here:
http://www.packardbell.co.uk/pb/en/G...l/NX.C0YEK.017
Pedantic as I am, I haven't even touched the device and I would like your advice about how to proceed further.
My goal is to repartition the drive, shrinking Windows 8 or maybe just leave the recovery partition and boot Slackware from a USB memory stick, ideally using a GPT (Gdisk partition table) and without messing around with the BIOS.
I don't know yet if this laptop uses a protected boot but I suspect so. I would like to avoid reverting to legacy BIOS mode, if there was a way to create some UEFI-compliant boot loader to install on the USB key. This way I would have extended security, making life harder to whoever wants to boot in to my laptop.
I have read the following docs:
http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:sla..._uefi_hardware
http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:sla...based_hardware
What I don't understand is, if I have to create my USB stick with the first doc, would I have to create a secure digital keys or would the system boot straight away?
Another question (off topic): I have already a USB stick with System Rescue CD installation. Would this be of any help to create a Slackware installation?
Thanks and sorry for the n00b questions.
I'll post some more details hoping I'll get some sort of feedback. This laptop can only work in UEFI-Secure Boot or legacy mode. In other words dual boot is impossible without changing the BIOS settings every time.
I've added the kernel and the initrd.img of the installer to my USB stick. I'll have to decide whether to keep Windows 8 or not (input welcome). This is the disk layout from gdisk:
Code:
Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 976773168 sectors, 465.8 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): AFFD2ECE-7362-47CA-B020-1FE24D9DC8AE
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 976773134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2029 sectors (1014.5 KiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 821247 400.0 MiB 2700 Basic data partition
2 821248 1435647 300.0 MiB EF00 EFI system partition
3 1435648 1697791 128.0 MiB 0C01 Microsoft reserved part
4 1697792 943720447 449.2 GiB 0700 Basic data partition
5 943720448 976773119 15.8 GiB 2700 Basic data partition
The only piece of information I need now is, what should I do at the end of the installation. Should I install LILO or Elilo? I can't seem to find Elilo on the USB installer. And should I install it on the partition or on the protective MBR? If I do so, would that interfere with Windows?
I also see a "EFI system partition". Is that of any use?
Thanks
