Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Linux install notes

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Dual-boot problems

After messing around a bit, I just decided that it just wasn't worth the effort and I went with a Linux-only install. This has the added advantage of freeing up some more disk-space (256Gb is not *that* much).

See here: Acer Aspire VN7-591G USB boot + SSD question 

Just a heads up. I found that this laptop (in UEFI mode) is one that will only boot EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
You can install a Linux EFI img and change the boot order with something like 'efibootmgr' and it will switch the boot
order back to Windows first on reboot. You can hit F-12 at boot and then select your Linux image but that's a pain.
I ended up copying Window's bootmgfw.efi to EFI/Microsoft/bootmgfw.efi and installing rEFInd as bootmgfw.efi as described here.


I made a backup of the Windows restore partition to a USB flash drive that I'll keep aside just in case. (using the Acer restore utility)


Linux Installation

Mint 17.1

It's time to try out a new Linux distribution. I always tend to end up with Debian, my last excursion being Ubuntu until they started with their Unity BS. For now, I'll install Linux Mint. If I don't like it, I can always change.

Booting from USB

I just downloaded the iso and copied the file to the stick: 

dd bs=4M if=linuxmint-17.1-kde-64bit-rc.iso of=/dev/sdX

Then I changed the Boot options on the portable (F2 at boot time) to Legacy mode. Guided install - full disk. Bye bye, windows.

Touchpad

See: touch-pad not detected on Acer Aspire VN7-591g

This is a bit annoying: in the live session, you can't click on the install icon. This is circumvented by pressing the context menu key on the keyboard, press 'n' to select "Run...", then start typing "install" and the installation program should be in the suggestion list.

After upgrading to kernel 3.16 the Touchpad works, but right-clicking is not recognized. I'll look into this further (information is provided in the link above), but meanwhile in the KDE settings I selected a two-finger click to be interpreted as a right-click.

Network

Wifi not recognized?

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