Hi everyone, Clive has done a fantastic job in putting on the LM17.1 on the HP laptop, I must admit I would not have thought to plug in an external DVD drive to invoke the MBR version, hence I was suck. However, it is sorted now and I have learnt too. Thank you to all for your support …...and to Clive.
Cheers Judy On Thu, 2015-07-02 at 12:00 +0000, peterboro-requ...@mailman.lug.org.uk wrote: > Send Peterboro mailing list submissions to > peterboro@mailman.lug.org.uk > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/peterboro > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > peterboro-requ...@mailman.lug.org.uk > > You can reach the person managing the list at > peterboro-ow...@mailman.lug.org.uk > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Peterboro digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Installing LM17.1 on HP 255 G1 laptop For Judy: Update 3: > Success (Mostly) (clive) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2015 19:15:25 +0100 > From: clive <scw...@gmail.com> > To: peterboro@mailman.lug.org.uk > Subject: [Peterboro] Installing LM17.1 on HP 255 G1 laptop For Judy: > Update 3: Success (Mostly) > Message-ID: <1435774525.2143.87.camel@scwssl03> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > Hi All > > I have completed the LM17.1 install on Judy's laptop. The only part the > does not work, and does not affect Judy, is the Blutooth adapter This > bug applies: > > http://askubuntu.com/questions/453605/ralink-rt-3290-bluetooth-problem-on-ubuntu-14-04 > > It looks to be close to being fixed so Blutooth may be fixed at some > future update. > > The fan appeared to be operating as normal and not at full speed as > reported elsewhere. In fact lm-sensors could not find any chip reporting > on fan speed. The BIOS had a straight fan on/off switch so it may be > controlled by a simple thermostat. > > It turned out that the Laptop is actually a 255 not 250, signifying an > AMD CPU. This was not otherwise significant because the 255 also has a > Ubuntu release and restricted BIOS. > > Whilst I tried many boot combinations with Judy over the phone it seems > we were never able to invoke the MBR version of LM17.1. When I got my > hands on the laptop I discovered that the BIOS always prefers the UEFI > boot version, so this may have been the reason. > > However, by attaching an external DVD drive I was able to choose the MBR > boot version and this loaded with no complaints from Grub. Thankfully it > was no more complicated than this. I loaded the software on a clean > reformatted disk, applied the updates, did a bit of tidying up of the > menus, tested it and everything worked fine (apart from the Blutooth). > > Lessons Learned > --------------- > > This exercise was quite instructive and you may be interested in the > following findings. > > 1. Just because a computer is delivered with Ubuntu does not mean it is > particularly suited to running Linux. The version of Ubuntu can be (and > I believe was) specially tweaked to work on the particular machine it > was delivered with. See: > > http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201301-12662/ > > 2. Support is questionable. I could not find anywhere to download the > tweaked version of Ubuntu, or its update. Ubuntu 14.04 had the BT > problem whereas the tweaked 12.04 version did not. This could tie the > user to an old version of Linux, which will eventually become > unsupported. I found no dedicated Ubuntu support page for this laptop. > > 3. Support was also compromised by the fact that there was no way to > update the laptop BIOS under Ubuntu. Worse, if you got to the HP BIOS > download page using a Linux computer the BIOS download link is > completely hidden from you! The HP process for updating the BIOS is > quite complex and always requires Windows 7 or 8 to be running on the > machine to be updated. One commentator described the HP BIOS update > process as a shambles, which I could well believe seeing the number of > procedure changes, workarounds and failed updates reported. I could not > find the full HP BIOS update history to see if any were worth > installing. The latest update was a security one but referred to UEFI > which we were not using. I did not update the BIOS and would not have > been confident that it would take and not brick the laptop, quite apart > from the pain of temporarily installing Windows, which takes hours. > > 4. Always avoid restricted BIOS interfaces. There was a long discussion > on the web on how this was even stopping the HP laptop working for > Windows users. Linux may have greater need of the advanced pages if the > normal settings are Windows-centric (Though I find Boot order and > switching off secure boot covers most issues). One commentator (rightly) > said PC's are not closed platform Apple devices so it is never a good > idea to stop administrators accessing BIOS screens. > > 5. I like to give machines a quick clean before returning them. I may > have been lucky but my now old laptop had an accessible fan and cooling > hardware under a single plastic cover and it was really easy to keep > clean. I checked on youtube and the fan for the HP is buried in the > depths of the machine and access involves a lot of time and significant > risk of damage. So I had to give it back as it was. > > My conclusions are that I was lucky to get LM17 working so quickly as it > could have been much more difficult, especially if a BIOS update was > needed. I noticed that the first question on the Linux forums is "Have > you updated the BIOS?" when reporting a problem. > > Maintainability of the HP was poor with significant effort and risk > associated with cleaning or replacing a fan. > > I think I would look elsewhere if I was buying a new laptop (for Windows > or Linux). > > Hope this is useful > > Cheers > > Clive > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Subject: Digest Footer > > _______________________________________________ > Peterboro mailing list > Peterboro@mailman.lug.org.uk > https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/peterboro > > ------------------------------ > > End of Peterboro Digest, Vol 508, Issue 1 > ***************************************** _______________________________________________ Peterboro mailing list Peterboro@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/peterboro
