Boot from USB-C possible in Acer Predator Triton 700?

Technically should be possible... for I have my wireless keyboard and mouse connected via USB-C to USB 3 connector... and these two work even in BIOS...

I am not sure if the same could be said for loading OS.

garrick

@sri369

After your comment I decided to buy an SSD to test it out. Guess what, it can! Thank you for helping me make the decision on buying the SSD.

For those wanted to use Linux on this laptop, I guess this is the best solution for the moment (until Acer decide to unlock the BIOS, if ever). I installed Ubuntu 18 LTS on SanDisk Extreme Portable for those who're curious.

@garrick Hello! I also bought an Acer Predator Triton 700 and want to install Ubuntu 16.04 on it, and I faced with the same problem of not able to change the SATA mode from RAID to AHCI. It seems that your solution is feasible. Could you explain to me in more details? For example, how do you connect the external SSD to the computer? After doing that, does everything behave as a normal installation of Ubuntu? Thanks!

ZheYing

It is possible to boot from type-c. You need to enable f12 boot menu from the bios first. Then flash Ubuntu onto an external drive. Then boot from it. It worked for me with Debian but I haven’t tried Ubuntu

jianning you can boot from any usb port as long as you set a temporary supervisor password and disable secure boot the after whatever you do finishes set the password to blank again to avoid future issues

Does it mean to creat a bootable Ubuntu SSD stick (no matter it is type C or not) instead of an USB stick, so that just directly install and use the Ubuntu directly on that bootable Ubuntu SSD and thus we don't need to worry about changing RAID into AHCI since there will be enough space in that bootable SSD?

Or do you mean to install the Ubuntu from a bootable USB to another external SSD (no matter it is type C or not) connected to the laptop?

jianning you can alwasy boot from a live bootable drive if you wish so but i was talking about bootable installation drive

@xapim Yes. I mean, when trying to install Ubuntu on the Acer Predator Triton 700 using a USB bootable installation drive (whose storage is 8GB), instead of proceeding the installation, it shows that "You need at least 8.6GB disk space to install Ubuntu. This computer has only 8.1GB." Yet I did assign 200GB amount of unallocated space for the Ubuntu. Then why it is still telling that there is only 8.1GB? Then it must be that the storage of this bootable USB is 8GB, which cannot afford the 8.6GB that the Ubuntu is needed. Then, if the storage of the bootable USB is 32GB, or more to meet my need, then does it mean it will be OK for me to install the Ubuntu, though not on the storage of computer, but just on the bootable USB itself, so that I may still use the Nvidia GPU to train neural networks while using the Ubuntu on the bootable USB? Then, does it mean I need to use a bootable USB large enough to install the Ubuntu on this drive, or do I need to use a bootable USB drive to install the Ubuntu on another external hard disk/solid state drive (whose storage is large enough to accommodate my need)? Or do I misinterpret your meaning? If so, then please tell me your instructions. Thanks!

jianning for any bootable usb drive i would use a 16gb usb drive minimum because sometimes the files need to be extracted inside the drive for installation thats probably why youre getting that issue get a good 16gb usb drive sandisk cruzer force for ex they are pretty cheap check here dont get a 64gb neither a 32 as mos of the times they will create extra partitions if you format it normally or half of the space becomes unallocated and you have to use like easeus partiton master (for ex) to reformat the drive to full space as windows cant as they are too large not advisable happened to me tried 64/32 and nothing worked 16gb its the one u need

xapim said:

jianning for any bootable usb drive i would use a 16gb usb drive minimum because sometimes the files need to be extracted inside the drive for installation thats probably why youre getting that issue get a good 16gb usb drive sandisk cruzer force for ex they are pretty cheap check here dont get a 64gb neither a 32 as mos of the times they will create extra partitions if you format it normally or half of the space becomes unallocated and you have to use like easeus partiton master (for ex) to reformat the drive to full space as windows cant as they are too large not advisable happened to me tried 64/32 and nothing worked 16gb its the one u need

You mean just the bootable USB, or the external SSD that I am going to install Ubuntu 16 on? The bootable USB is not the place to install Ubuntu, right? Or you just mean that I should use an USB with 16GB instead of 8GB as the bootable USB since it might require some room (that may be more than 8GB) inside the bootable USB drive to do the installation? If that is what you mean, then I remember that I used the same 8GB bootable USB to install Ubuntu 16 successfully on another laptop several months ago without any issues. I am not sure if it is the problem of the 8GB (rather than 16GB) storage in my current bootable USB drive.

jianning said:

xapim said:

jianning for any bootable usb drive i would use a 16gb usb drive minimum because sometimes the files need to be extracted inside the drive for installation thats probably why youre getting that issue get a good 16gb usb drive sandisk cruzer force for ex they are pretty cheap check here dont get a 64gb neither a 32 as mos of the times they will create extra partitions if you format it normally or half of the space becomes unallocated and you have to use like easeus partiton master (for ex) to reformat the drive to full space as windows cant as they are too large not advisable happened to me tried 64/32 and nothing worked 16gb its the one u need

You mean just the bootable USB, or the external SSD that I am going to install Ubuntu 16 on? The bootable USB is not the place to install Ubuntu, right? Or you just mean that I should use an USB with 16GB instead of 8GB as the bootable USB since it might require some room (that may be more than 8GB) inside the bootable USB drive to do the installation? If that is what you mean, then I remember that I used the same 8GB bootable USB to install Ubuntu 16 successfully on another laptop several months ago without any issues. I am not sure if it is the problem of the 8GB (rather than 16GB) storage in my current bootable USB drive.

Per @xapim, you are right, you can install ubunto to a USB and use that instead of messing up your internal drives with both OS. Windows 10 does not play well with multiple OSes.

If you wish to run UBUNTU or any OS dedicated on a USB on a long term basis, I would recommend a SSD in an enclosure and use that to connect to USB 3. This also keeps the port cooler compared to standard USB 3 and works faster too. How do I know this --> I have a 240 GB SSD I got for about $20-30 and an enclosure for about $10. And this combo works great for me.

I tried install Ubuntu 16.04 into an SanDisk SSD drive with a bootable USB stick. It showed that the installation was successful. Yet after that, when I restart my laptop, it directly goes to Windows OS and I didn't find any booting information from the SSD drive! Could anyone tell me why? Thanks!

jianning said:

I tried install Ubuntu 16.04 into an SanDisk SSD drive with a bootable USB stick. It showed that the installation was successful. Yet after that, when I restart my laptop, it directly goes to Windows OS and I didn't find any booting information from the SSD drive! Could anyone tell me why? Thanks!

Enable F12 option in boot. When laptop starts, keep pressing F12 until you see a boot menu, and then select USB. Keep in mind, you should have installed Linux to USB in UEFI mode to allow USB boot when BIOS is in UEFI mode.

sri369 said:

jianning said:

I tried install Ubuntu 16.04 into an SanDisk SSD drive with a bootable USB stick. It showed that the installation was successful. Yet after that, when I restart my laptop, it directly goes to Windows OS and I didn't find any booting information from the SSD drive! Could anyone tell me why? Thanks!

Enable F12 option in boot. When laptop starts, keep pressing F12 until you see a boot menu, and then select USB. Keep in mind, you should have installed Linux to USB in UEFI mode to allow USB boot when BIOS is in UEFI mode.

I did that during installing Ubuntu. Yet After the installation is completed, I need to unplug the bootable USB, right? Yet after unplug the bootable USB and restart the laptop, even after pressing F12, I could only find Windows, there is nothing involving the SSD. I don't know what went wrong.

jianning said:

I did that during installing Ubuntu. Yet After the installation is completed, I need to unplug the bootable USB, right? Yet after unplug the bootable USB and restart the laptop, even after pressing F12, I could only find Windows, there is nothing involving the SSD. I don't know what went wrong.

That is weird... for it should show up under boot options when you connect it and use F12 when starting laptop.

sri369 said:

jianning said:

I did that during installing Ubuntu. Yet After the installation is completed, I need to unplug the bootable USB, right? Yet after unplug the bootable USB and restart the laptop, even after pressing F12, I could only find Windows, there is nothing involving the SSD. I don't know what went wrong.

That is weird... for it should show up under boot options when you connect it and use F12 when starting laptop.

As for the "it" in "when you connect it", you mean the SSD to install Ubuntu on, not the bootable USB, right?

jianning said:

sri369 said:

jianning said:

I did that during installing Ubuntu. Yet After the installation is completed, I need to unplug the bootable USB, right? Yet after unplug the bootable USB and restart the laptop, even after pressing F12, I could only find Windows, there is nothing involving the SSD. I don't know what went wrong.

That is weird... for it should show up under boot options when you connect it and use F12 when starting laptop.

As for the "it" in "when you connect it", you mean the SSD to install Ubuntu on, not the bootable USB, right?

jianning i still couldnt figure out what you meant by the ssd or the bootable usb drive so are u trying to install linux on a external drive and boot from it ??? if so i dunno if it would work fine the only that should work without any issues as far as im aware/tested its the live cd/usb bootable drives
you might want to take a look here and ask in the ubuntu forum on how to do it acer doesnt support linux (only in a few models that come with it on stock) its at your own risk to try to sort out what you pretend to do

xapim said:

jianning said:

sri369 said:

jianning said:

I did that during installing Ubuntu. Yet After the installation is completed, I need to unplug the bootable USB, right? Yet after unplug the bootable USB and restart the laptop, even after pressing F12, I could only find Windows, there is nothing involving the SSD. I don't know what went wrong.

That is weird... for it should show up under boot options when you connect it and use F12 when starting laptop.

As for the "it" in "when you connect it", you mean the SSD to install Ubuntu on, not the bootable USB, right?

jianning i still couldnt figure out what you meant by the ssd or the bootable usb drive so are u trying to install linux on a external drive and boot from it ??? if so i dunno if it would work fine the only that should work without any issues as far as im aware/tested its the live cd/usb bootable drives
you might want to take a look here and ask in the ubuntu forum on how to do it acer doesnt support linux (only in a few models that come with it on stock) its at your own risk to try to sort out what you pretend to do

I want to install the Ubuntu 16 on an external SSD, then, when it is connected to the laptop, it should have the option to boot from that external SSD, right? Yet my current situation is there is no option to boot from that SSD, only boot from windows. So that I cannot enter the Ubuntu 16 installed in the SSD.
I have seen the post you provided and it seems that in that post, after following those steps, and connecting the external SSD to the laptop, it should have the option to boot from the external SSD besides the Windows (in the post the author install the Ubuntu into an external USB, which should be equivalent to the external SSD in my case, rather than the bootable USB). Thus, it seems that what appeared in the post is the normal case while what I met is an abnormal case. Yet I think what I did is quite similar to what he did and I don't know where I did wrong.
One more detail I can provide: During installing the Ubuntu to the external SSD, when choosing the installation of the bootloader, I only found /dev/sda which referred to the external SSD. Yet I saw in the post you gave me, it said that there should be /dev/sda referring to the internal disk of the laptop while also /dev/sdb referring to the external SSD (or external USB). Yet for me there is only /dev/sda referring to the external SSD. Why did the internal disk of the laptop disappeared? Was it due to the SATA mode issues (which I could not change since on this type of laptop, the SATA mode was locked to RAID and couldn't be altered to AHCI)?