Is installing Ubuntu on Acer Predator Helios 300 safe?

niko_belic_667

Hello everyone, I bought an Acer Predator Helios 300 [2060 / 16GB / i7 - 9750H] variant the other day. Really happy with the product. Apart from the excellent amalgamation of hardware, I was impressed at the number of pre-installed applications in place that help keep the system stable. 

Before Acer, my working environment was setup on a Linux machine and over the years I have grown accustomed to Ubuntu's user interface. 

Given that Acer's official website doesn't have any drivers for Linux based operating systems and none of Acer's custom applications have a Linux port, can I consider it safe to dual boot and install Ubuntu on my Acer Predator laptop? I hope this doesn't void the warranty either. 

My unusual paranoia stems from the assumption that Acer has put in fine-tuned applications that monitor and maintain the system health better than the mechanisms that come in-built an Operating System. Take those applications out of consideration and maybe it has the potential to reduce hardware life over prolonged usage. 

Please advise. 

Commodore_1995#

In my opinion, there is no problem. However, installing linux is usually a bit more complicated than installing windows. To do this, follow these instructions:

a) enable safe boot and restart windows:

b) enter the bios and change the sata mode to ahci. If the sata mode option is not available on the main tab, press the ctrl + s keys. Then press f10 and let windows install the ahci driver in safe mode;

c) then, start the linux installation. However, it is very likely that you will need to use the nouveau.modeset = 0 command to disable the nvidia video card.

Commodore_1995#

In my opinion, there is no problem. However, installing linux is usually a bit more complicated than installing windows. To do this, follow these instructions:

a) enable safe boot and restart windows:

b) enter the bios and change the sata mode to ahci. If the sata mode option is not available on the main tab, press the ctrl + s keys. Then press f10 and let windows install the ahci driver in safe mode;

c) then, start the linux installation. However, it is very likely that you will need to use the nouveau.modeset = 0 command to disable the nvidia video card.

niko_belic_667

egydiocoelho said:

In my opinion, there is no problem. However, installing linux is usually a bit more complicated than installing windows. To do this, follow these instructions:

a) enable safe boot and restart windows:

b) enter the bios and change the sata mode to ahci. If the sata mode option is not available on the main tab, press the ctrl + s keys. Then press f10 and let windows install the ahci driver in safe mode;

c) then, start the linux installation. However, it is very likely that you will need to use the nouveau.modeset = 0 command to disable the nvidia video card.

Thanks for the advice. Up until now, I had the habit of shrinking the available drive (via Windows disk management tool) and installing Ubuntu into the newly formed partition. I had no idea such parameters had to be taken care of beforehand. 

Come to think of it, one of the machines I worked on had an nVidia GT 1030 and I simply dual-booted the system via the above-mentioned strategy. While the Windows environment worked fine, initial boots to the newly installed Ubuntu environment always seems to crash after the Ubuntu logo. I guess that was because I didn't take care of the nouveau.modeset parameters. Somehow, it autocorrected itself. No idea how.

I need to learn more about these things. Is there an online resource/book I can go through to learn the basics of these things? Thank You.

Commodore_1995#

Did my tip help you? If it helped you, click yes to accept the answer. I also always recommend the ubuntu community, to learn something about linux: https://askubuntu.com/