Tutorial install Ubuntu 20.10 dual boot Windows 10 in dual drives in new Acer Nitro AN515-55-76SK

Simo998

I want to share my experience and here are the steps I used to do it.  (I tried to add a few more details for people doing this first time on a new laptop.)

 BEFORE beginning anything -General note - Make sure your windows is up to date, plugged in and charged and your wifi is working and your touchpad is working properly. (Some of the new Acer Nitro515-55 have error, jittery or erratic touchpads like I did. Suggest get it fixed before if that is the case, because it could be a hardware issue.) And remember to always back up your windows files before doing this. I have been doing doual boot linux distros and windows for 7 years but it was first time I did on a new Acer. Also I usually just "clone" my whole Windows drive to a spare external hard drive as backup. There are many cloning software are available like Samsung Magician (if you are cloning to a Samsung ssd) or AOMEI backupEr (clone mode) or Minitools Shadow Maker (clone) etc I am not affiliated to any but I use them all. Also keep a WIndows recovery USB on hand just in case). (BTW Clonezilla would not recognize my Nvme drives so thats why I used other backup clone programs pre-install).

My assumptions & aim:

Install the  Linux distro Ubuntu 20.04 (in my case in the end was Ubuntu 20.10 but either should be same) and Windows dual boot into TWO separate drives and keep a third drive as storage and have Grub take over as my default bootloader where I can later choose to boot into Ubuntu or Windows. I assume you already know how to download and verify an Ubuntu ISO and install into a USB to create a live disk (many tutorials online).

my machine/ pre-installation:

Acer Nitro 5 (2020 model) laptop AN5-15-55-76SK i7 10750H GTX1650i, 16Gb ram, 144Mhz

512gb nvme (empty) + 250gb nvme (current Windows OS) + 1tb Samsung Evo SATA SSD (NTFS "Storage").

My plan is;

-Ubuntu in nvme (512gb)

-Windows ( keep untouched) in other nvme (250gb)

- Samsung 1tb (NTFS SSD for storage untouched)

here is what it (should) look like after profit/win;

To start;

Do a clean shutdown from windows then boot up machine.

-When Acer logo immediately press (a few times if necessary)

F2 to enter Bios menu.

-In order to make changes to the bios and disabe secure boot we need enable and choose a "Bios security password" to make changes.)

-in bios menu, set "F12 boot menu" to "enabled"

-set secure boot off

-set fast boot off

then

-save BIOS settings and exit

-and boot into Windows again then, next step to summarize, (read this first) we need to in Windows, set " safeboot" on then in bios "Main" menu press "ctrl S" to enter (secret) bios menu to change to SATA AHCI mode, then go back into Windows to "disable safeboot", the details as below;

How to Switch to SATA AHCI MODE steps;

-When in windows

-Click the Start Button and type cmd

Right-click the result and select "Run as administrator"

-Type this command in one line and press ENTER:

                bcdedit /set safeboot minimal

-Restart the computer and enter BIOS Setup with F2

- press ctrl-s in "Main" section in bios)

- toggle to Change the SATA Operation mode to "AHCI" from either IDE or RAID

-Save changes and exit Setup and then Windows will automatically boot to Safe Mode. I'ts OK...relax

-In Windows (safe mode now) Right-click the Windows Start Menu once more. Choose Command Prompt (Admin).

-Type this command and press ENTER:

                  bcdedit /deletevalue safeboot

-Reboot once more and Windows will automatically start with AHCI drivers enabled. That part is done.

-Shutdown Windows again (so we can now do next part of testing our Ubuntu live USB for installation.....)

-insert Ubuntu live USB (tip: insert into the 2.0 USB (slower) slot (generally 2.0 slots it loads better than 3.0 because something to do with more drivers and stability)

-power up and boot

-On seeing Acer logo immediately press F12 to enter boot (priority/select) menu

-use arrows to select your Ubuntu live USB (usually says something Linux , or Lintuslinux or similar) & press enter.

-Ubuntu live USB should boot up normally

-(Important) test the live Ubuntu usb (or other linux distro) to make sure it is stable, sound and wifi, keypad touchpad all ok).

(All was working for Ubuntu 20.4 (and 20.10) for me. I also did this test run with Ubuntu 20.10 live USB also no problems )

(side note- I tested MXlive 19.2 and 19.3 live USB's loved them but both were not stable on my new Nitro 5 AN515-55 , MX live USB kept getting random reboot and hanging on the MX live usb saying memory and ram.100% error or something.. Pop OS was ok but didn't feel as smooth as Ubuntu. I tested Majaro Gnome and it was a bit buggy. Only Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10 and Manjaro XFCE were very stable for me. Those are the only ones I tested.I am sure others will be able to test more.

So I chose to try Ubuntu 20.04 first (like I said in the end I chose 20.10 but it is the same process)

( Tip - for those.doing this first time , I had a back up live Ubuntu 20.10 USB and Manjaro XFCE live usb's on hand just in case. The last thing you want is during installation to have a live USB fail for whatever reason, and have to make live USBs again, so if you are doing this first time have backup few live USB distros just in case you want save time if something goes wrong).

- If all is working OK the Shutdown live Ubuntu usb (if it says remove USB before & press enter then just follow instructions to shutdown.)

>>>>>Now we know which distro is working best and prefer<<<<<<<<<<<

-insert the Live Ubuntu 20.04 (or 20.10) USB

-Reboot into Bios (F2 at Acer logo)

-Now is an important ("insurance") step, in bios set secure boot back to enabled to "set trusted Uefi file". DO NOT OMIT THIS STEP

-(BTW For my new Nitro 5 , I could not do this part with secure boot disabled.)

-You MUST in BIOS menu ..

-select "set trusted Uefi file" and then just choose path your usb>efi > "grubx64.efi" file, it will ask you name it , I named it to "Ubuntugrubx64" ( or whatever), then click enter to confirm. .... (because some who people missed this step apparently had problems post installation with blank screen etc so I did it anyway  )

(note- some people dont have the grubx64.efi file and just chose shimx64.efi file instead. In Ubuntu the grubx64.efi file was easily found in the efi part of the usb. )

-Remember in Bios menu also to change "boot priority' in bios to make sure the grubx64 file loads before windows.

-Next step "disable" secure boot (again) before proceeding with final installation. (Reason is: I could not do installation process with secure boot enabled. After I had set up and was ready to  install, I now wanted boot into the live Ubuntu USB to proceed with full installation. .....HOWEVER I could not install with "secure boot enabled", I got some grub error mesaage need load kernel or something, so to cut a long story short simple solution, I had to just DISABLE secure boot again for the whole remaining installation process...

... and that was ok. (Just to be clear for me during actual installation and post installation my Nitro 5's secure boot is still "disabled"/OFF.)

-After setting trusted Uefi file in Bios then save bios settings and reboot into boot menu with F12 again.

(note - by now it should boot straight into Ubuntu live USB but just to make sure I just always chose the live USB in F12 menu. I will explain later)

...Next step,

Final Installation.....

- Boot into Live Ubuntu usb.

( In the live Ubuntu USB environment I usually put wifi on but some people dont)

-click the "Install Ubuntu" icon top left screen.

-Ubuntu Installation process begins....

-You will see some simple menus...

- Choose language

next menu;

I chose

- tick "NORMAL installation"

- DO NOT choose download updates while installing - just to save time.

- I chose ticked "install third party software for graphics and WiFi..."

next MOST important menu says;

"installation type"

- I chose "ERASE DISK AND INSTALL UBUNTU" (note - remember I am installing dual boot on TWO disks. If you are installing on one disk with two partitions then choose "install Ubuntu along-side windows" INSTEAD).

-next section I chose my empty drive where I want ubuntu to go. (for me I chose my empty 512gb nvme because I know my windows was on 250gb nvme).

!Double-check you chose correct other drive and not your windows drive!

-if all ok then click "continue"

-next menus "should" be easy...

-choose location, time zone, any name, any computer name, username and passwords etc..

- Now 2 things can happen;

a) if you are LUCKY you get an "installation complete click to reboot/restart notification.

It willl ask you take your media out then enter to shut down.

... You can reboot now into Ubuntu and when it reboots it should boot straight into Ubuntu ...Now for first fresh boot new installation I usually press F12 at Acer logo right away into boot menu, and choose "Ubuntu" OS just to make sure I booted straight into Ubuntu so that I can update nvidia drivers and also update grub immediately by "sudo update-grub" in terminal, just make sure grub is updated properly .

BUT  that didn't happen for me..this is what happened in my new Nitro 5 AN515-5....

....b) Installation looked great for my new Acer Nitro 515-55-76SK BUT in the last 10 seconds of installation , i got an Ubuntu error notification something about " third party driver download error ..' and it automatically opens the firefox browser to an Ubuntu log error page that shows many people got same error message.

!!Dont panic there is a VERY easy quick workaround!!! I explain here...

(Side note- At first I thought it was my Ubuntu 20.04 live usb so I tested the whole installation process again with Ubuntu 20.10 usb and same error notification last 10 seconds before competition....

.(...So moments later ... after reading the Ubuntu error logs one by one, and  seemed this error affected some people with Thinkpads and my new acer nitro 5 , I saw some people were able to workaround it).

TWO (possble) workarounds;

workaround 1 (YES THIS worked for me!) : Force reboot. ie just shutdown the live USB and reboot new Ubuntu Installation anyway.

ie;-Ignore the error and shutdown live usb and reboot , press F12 on Acer logo and in boot menu choose new "Ubuntu" OS .

- For me when I force booted Ubuntu 20.10 it just booted like normal, and once in Ubuntu I immediately updated software and drivers right away using the software updater program and did a quick  "sudo update-grub" in terminal to make sure my grub was updated.

-All is working for me now and I have successfully installed Ubuntu in second nvme drive with windows OS in other nvme drive untouched. Both OS's are shown in grub.

-My third 1tb NTFS ssd drive is visible in Ubuntu and I use for storage for both my Windows and Linux drives.

Now for...

Workaround 2 ( others on UBuntu logs have mentioned this worked for them with same problem so I will list it here anyway. The problem is not limited to Acer Nitros I just wanna make that clear):

-I read in the Ubuntu logs some people were able to do the installation successfully by NOT enabling wifi during installation process and choosing NOT  to update during installation and NOT choosing to install third party drivers . Some people found this worked when they got same third party driver update error notification in last seconds of installation.

Thats it.

Post note: My "secure boot" installation was off (disabled) during installation and post installation also. Fast boot is always off. I also did not need to put "nomodeset" or "nuveau.modeset=0" in grub during installation. I did NOT use legacy mode BIOS at all as it is not available anymore.  All done in UEFI BIOS.  I did not need to reflash bios at any time. My Acer Nitro AN5-15-55 had display NO  issues and no blank screens during installation or Post installation, Wifi, display all works good. Touchpad NO  issues. Sound is working. My Nitro 5 running on 3 days no stop and all stable and smooth so far.)

(For those doing this a first time on a new laptop, once you know what to do, the whole thing should take just 15-20 minutes if you had to do it a second time . So you realise its easy post installation. My previous machines were dual boot Mint/Win10 on HP in two partitions on a single drive , and another laptop was dual boot Ubuntu/Win10 on Asus two drives, so this time my new Nitro 5 was definitely slightly different. I also didn't need to take the windows drive out at anytime during installation dual boot on two drives which is the old and unnecessary  dual boot way .

---Credits: Many thanks to @batmalin, JordanB, Jichi79 and the other Gurus, Pathfinders and Trailblazers for reminders and help with my Acer pre-installation questions and their posts

Here are some the links I personally found useful for installing my Ubuntu 20.10 on my new Acer Nitro 5 AN515-55 just to share

..... https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/953267#Comment_953267

...... https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/543729/efi-dual-boot-not-seeing-linux-on-nitro-5-an515-51-78c6

.......... https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/592158/switch-from-raid-to-ahci-on-acer-nitro-5-an515-54#latest

----- https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/619152/touchpad-stuck-at-a-point-for-few-secend-or-minutes-nitro-an515-54#latest (touchpad)

-- https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/538305/cant-access-uefi-after-installing-linux-dual-boot#latest

(I wrote the above to the best of my memory. Very happy now all working on my brand new Nitro 5)

batmalin

Nice, just adding the grubx64.efi as trusted is not needed when you have linux on the second drive.

batmalin

Go to BIOS and disable keyboard backlit timeout, should be in main tab.

batmalin

Nice, just adding the grubx64.efi as trusted is not needed when you have linux on the second drive.

Simo998

batmalin said:

Nice, just adding the grubx64.efi as trusted is not needed when you have linux on the second drive.

Yeah thats why I called that part  "insurance"..., I only added that part because a few Pathfinders here in previous posts said we had to activate it or "risk black screen on first boot after installation", which was confusing, so I did it anyway as "insurance'. But I agree in hindsight it is overkill, and I dont think the adding grubx64.efi to trusted file in UEfi is neccessary at all because after I did it, and after I installed ubuntu, my ubuntu installation was separate to the grubx64.efi file in my F12 Acer boot menu, ie on F12 boot menu I got my Ubuntu newly in first line boot priprity then next line is the (trusted file) grubx64 then next is my windows OS, so I realized/suspected later it wasnt used for my final Ubuntu installation.

Now I am using 20.10 I am actually tempted to reinstall to put 20.04 instead because although 20.10  is great, I get screen freezes after a day or two when I do certain things on the desktop. Not a big deal, 98% time its ok... I suspect 20.04 might be slightly more stable being LTS. That said Ubuntu 20.10 is great, smooth, just a few small bugs...

Other feedback Ubuntu 20.10 on Nitro5 An5-15-55 post installation: Keyboard back light works but cant change colour (its red).  Touchpad is fine. Sound is fine.  Brightness is ok. Most apps work except Conky Manager from Teejeetech ppa but I am using Gnome Extensions with sensors instead now. I somehow cant get fan speed sensors and control to work yet, but generally the machine is cool and no overheating at all. Would be nice to be able to see fan see and adjust it when necessary, but for now its all automatic and working cool. wifi speed is fine. Nvidia display drivers no problem so far.

batmalin

If you are sure that the KB is RGB then try OpenRGB - https://gitlab.com/CalcProgrammer1/OpenRGB 
https://youtu.be/YxOVwRRjmfA
Thermal fan control is disabled in BIOS thats why you can`t see the sensors. For fan control try NBFC - https://github.com/hirschmann/nbfc

batmalin

You can take a look here as well - https://github.com/withinboredom/system-76-keyboards  here - https://github.com/Gibtnix/MSIKLM and here - https://github.com/wroberts/rogauracore

Simo998

batmalin said:

You can take a look here as well - https://github.com/withinboredom/system-76-keyboards  here - https://github.com/Gibtnix/MSIKLM and here - https://github.com/wroberts/rogauracore

great info thanks. I just need make sure its ok for my Acer Nitro5 because on reading they give warning of some MSI motherboards bricked but seems they have alot support for Asus laptops. Hopefully can find one for Nitro 5. tks.

batmalin

Look at the supported Asus KB hw ids and check yours. You might be lucky...

Simo998

batmalin said:

Look at the supported Asus KB hw ids and check yours. You might be lucky...

btw is there a quick fix to keep the Nitro keyboard backlight  persistently always on in Ubuntu? (My keyboard backlight sleeps as soon as I am not typing and lights up only when I am typing.  Would be a bonus if can keep it always on sometimes)

batmalin

Go to BIOS and disable keyboard backlit timeout, should be in main tab.