Linux distro for UX305

nine_tails · 8 Jun 2016 at 13:03

Hello!

I just picked my self a UX305CA from Asus. I wanted some suggestions on which distro to install on the machine. Searching through, Arch linux seems like an option. I am sort of looking for a solution which works well out of the box , basically i do not wish to spend hours looking for a driver to get something working.

My usage for this will be some programming , watching movies and general office related work.I am not familiar with any linux based OS's (though I work as a developer ) ; I feel some comfort level with wrestling some parts of the system.

Can some one please enlighten me on how most of the common distros differ? ex does an update to the kernel require you to rebuild and deploy the source yourself ? Or is this possible via an update-manager sort of application?I'd be glad to hear from someone who has this lappy and has a OS up and running.

Cheers!

A.N.Other · 8 Jun 2016 at 13:10

Well if you want it to work out of the box, Arch is not for you. It gives you nothing other than a terminal - the rest is up to you. That said, Arch rocks.

There are of course many options, but Ubuntu and Mint are probably the most user-friendly and have the largest 'google-support' bases. Download one of the LTS versions to extend the live of your install. These should basically work out of the box. Both of these use apt as the package manager, which does all of the updates to the software and kernel.

nine_tails · 8 Jun 2016 at 13:34

Cheers mate! Is there any particular guide or introductory link where how and what needs to be configured for most linux installations? I am happy to spend some time working with it , I do not mind getting hold of the tool chains/desktop shells etc... mainly worried about hardware support.

Are any distros more of a resource hogs?

lamboman · 8 Jun 2016 at 16:26

I personally keep it fairly simple for selecting a desktop distribution:

Wide hardware support, reliable, good package stability, functional out of the box - Ubuntu
Above but manual configuration for a bespoke setup, bleeding edge packages - Arch

If you're willing to put in a little time, I've found Arch just works (better than Ubuntu by a longshot). The AUR has everything you need, and the documentation is stunning. You're unlikely to come across a problem that isn't documented.

Ubuntu seems like the best fit. The installer is self-explanatory. Install any proprietary drivers in the Settings, and install TLP for power management. Its default configuration is unlikely to need changing.

A.N.Other · 8 Jun 2016 at 16:26

It should really be as simple as inserting a LiveCD / USB stick (/ your method of choice) and installing from there. The majority of distros will work fine with commodity hardware and will require no further configuration.

Any resource-hogging is generally down to the desktop enviroment, rather than the distro. If you want something streamlined but that can still be made to look nice, I'd recommend XFCE as a good starting point (here, for example).

A.N.Other · 8 Jun 2016 at 16:29

lamboman said:
I personally keep it fairly simple for selecting a desktop distribution:

Wide hardware support, reliable, good package stability, functional out of the box - Ubuntu

Above but manual configuration for a bespoke setup, bleeding edge packages - Arch

If you're willing to put in a little time, I've found Arch just works (better than Ubuntu by a longshot). The AUR has everything you need, and the documentation is stunning. You're unlikely to come across a problem that isn't documented.

I'm also a devotee of Arch, but sometimes it does explode when new packages come down. Yesterday perl upgraded on my system, which took out Chromium and most of perl itself. It took me a surprising amount of time to sort out, as there were then conflicting dependencies with the various necessary downgrades :/

nine_tails · 14 Jun 2016 at 14:52

Alright , so i am going to do arch install over the weekend as a dual boot with Win10. Been following the wiki on the site...have a few questions ...

The laptop comes pre-installed with Win10 and i can see the following partitions, last one created by me to install linux after shrinking volume

/dev/sda1 <windows primary>
/dev/ef1 <windows efi> (260 MB) <- Is the size a problem in any way?
/dev/rec <windows recovery>
/dev/sda2 <unallocated>

1. Is a GPT needed if i am already on a UFEI system running windows 10

Basically do I need to do this step ?
(parted) mklabel gpt
Wanted to confirm this is only if it is a clean disk.

2. Since the EFI partition already exists on the system and i am going for a straight forward only single partition for everything, is this the right command to use once i run parted on my unallocated partition.
(parted)/dev/sda2
(parted) mkpart primary ext4 1MiB 100%

3) Do i need to mark existing EFI partition as boot ?
i.e
(parted) /dev/ef1
(parted) set 1 boot on

4) I am not clear on what needs to be mounted before the installation.
What i assume is :
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/boot
mount /dev/ef1 /mnt/boot

5) If for some reason if I need to remove arch and get back to just windows..can some one please elaborate how this can be achieved?
Since the laptop came pre-installed i do not have the disk drive or the cd-key... i have however created a USB recovery disk.

Cheers!

lamboman · 15 Jun 2016 at 18:17

A.N.Other said:
I'm also a devotee of Arch, but sometimes it does explode when new packages come down. Yesterday perl upgraded on my system, which took out Chromium and most of perl itself. It took me a surprising amount of time to sort out, as there were then conflicting dependencies with the various necessary downgrades :/

Part of the whole purpose with configuring your system with Arch is to also make decisions of what software you want to run. Certain projects are unfortunately more "unstable" with regards to changes than others. Of course, your breakage wouldn't have happened on a more update stable distribution, however the old adage of "Arch breaks" is something that I personally don't believe to be true. The Wiki makes up for any issues 99% of the time in my experience.

nine_tails, to answer your questions:
0. That EFI partition size isn't a problem. Mine is 96MiB, 52% full.
1. You'll already be using GPT. Don't do this step.
2. That command seems right to me. I hate parted though, gdisk is much more friendly! I strongly recommend you use it so you can clearly see exactly what you're doing, it really is the idiot-proof utility.
3. No need to mark partitions as boot (boot flag) this extends back to MS-DOS days. Leave it unmarked.
4. Your mounting is correct.
5. I'm guessing you're using systemd-boot? No real reason to use any of the alternatives on an EFI system. If so, just remove all but the EFI folder in your /boot partition, and delete the Boot and systemd folders in /boot/EFI.

nine_tails · 16 Jun 2016 at 10:14

lamboman said:
Part of the whole purpose with configuring your system with Arch is to also make decisions of what software you want to run. Certain projects are unfortunately more "unstable" with regards to changes than others. Of course, your breakage wouldn't have happened on a more update stable distribution, however the old adage of "Arch breaks" is something that I personally don't believe to be true. The Wiki makes up for any issues 99% of the time in my experience.

nine_tails, to answer your questions:
0. That EFI partition size isn't a problem. Mine is 96MiB, 52% full.
1. You'll already be using GPT. Don't do this step.
2. That command seems right to me. I hate parted though, gdisk is much more friendly! I strongly recommend you use it so you can clearly see exactly what you're doing, it really is the idiot-proof utility.
3. No need to mark partitions as boot (boot flag) this extends back to MS-DOS days. Leave it unmarked.
4. Your mounting is correct.
5. I'm guessing you're using systemd-boot? No real reason to use any of the alternatives on an EFI system. If so, just remove all but the EFI folder in your /boot partition, and delete the Boot and systemd folders in /boot/EFI.

Cheers mate! This weekend will be exciting!!

Tom B · 16 Jun 2016 at 16:25

Arch is a pain to install but worthwhile. Here's a nice tutorial: http://www.muktware.io/arch-linux-guide-the-always-up-to-date-arch-linux-tutorial/

For EFI I had a few problems with partitions and had to set up an additional 1007kb bios_boot partition. Keep that in mind before you get too far into the process or you'll need to restart (I seem to remember it's missing from that tutorial) see also: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GUID_Partition_Table

lamboman · 16 Jun 2016 at 23:18

Tom B said:
Arch is a pain to install but worthwhile. Here's a nice tutorial: http://www.muktware.io/arch-linux-guide-the-always-up-to-date-arch-linux-tutorial/

For EFI I had a few problems with partitions and had to set up an additional 1007kb bios_boot partition. Keep that in mind before you get too far into the process or you'll need to restart (I seem to remember it's missing from that tutorial) see also: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GUID_Partition_Table

BIOS boot partition for UEFI? Reading that page it seems to be a GRUB thing? As I said previously, systemd-boot is easier. After all, both kernels support EFISTUB.

nine_tails: absolutely document the process, every step with a description. I can't stress this further. If you ever need to reinstall, you have already documented all the quirks required for your hardware (which there should be few). If you're going for a fully manual window manager-only setup, save all your dot files and again, use comments. Will absolutely help in the future.

nine_tails · 20 Jun 2016 at 11:53

Thanks guys! I managed to install it successfully over the weekend and it was a bit of a pita. Problems faced :

- GParted : I resized the windows partition using the live USB , and for some reason it created an unallocated space (50 mb) and moved everything by an offset of that , and then shrunk it form the right... 30 mins for the operation which made no sense to me.

- Installed successfully after this , but the boot kept on failing.. it dropped me into emergency shell. Solution was to add the crc libs into mkinitcpio.conf (something introduced in kernel 4.6), but unknown to me , i started reverting the install... reboot via live USB, clean partition , removed boot loaders and merged back to windows. I thought this was due to me pulling the USB before a proper shutdown occurred.

- Started with GParted to parition again... this time , it moved everything by an offset of 6.7~GB... I was really loosing it... and cancelled the operation and it left everything in an unusable state... no windows , no linux. boom!

- Recovered windows using recovery USB created...which took about another hour or two... luckily ...everything back to normal... this was pretty much end of day 1.

- Day 2, i partitioned from windows (shrink volume) and only used Gparted to format the disk to ext4.

- Re-installed.. everything worked out... rebooted ...same error as 2.. but since i knew i did not do anything dodgy , spent more time figuring it out... after which it was a breeze.

The system is blazing fast... I still need to play around with it. Any apps you guys suggest to have... got libre office and rocking gnome... I have set up AUR and using it via yaourt...

Can you guys point me in the direction of some guides which speak related to maintenance of the distro? (frequency of updates etc).

Cheers!

Tom B · 20 Jun 2016 at 13:07

lamboman said:
BIOS boot partition for UEFI? Reading that page it seems to be a GRUB thing? As I said previously, systemd-boot is easier. After all, both kernels support EFISTUB.
.

Yes you're right, that is GRUB only, I should have mentioned that.

Can you guys point me in the direction of some guides which speak related to maintenance of the distro? (frequency of updates etc).

Arch is a rolling release, this means individual packages will be available to update as an when they are ready. You should never update individual packages. This is because the libraries they work with may also need updating. All you really need to know is the command pacman -Syu. This will update everything and generally is all you'll need.

In theory running pacman -Syu can break the system, but I've been running arch for nearly 4 years and I haven't had a problem on either my desktop or my laptop, I use Arch roughly 95%+ of the time and occasionally boot into windows to play specific games.

The process is documented here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/System_maintenance#Upgrading_the_system but in general if there is anything that is likely to cause problems it's posted on the archlinux home page.

Running this frequently is less likely to cause problems than waiting months between updates, simply because less will change at once.

For packages you'll probably want `wine-staging` if you fancy running windows apps/games, you'll be surprised how well they work in most cases. I play Starcraft 2 and Skyrim frequently without any problems

Arch is nice because almost everything you'll need is either available on the official repositories or available on the AUR.

edit: One thing I should add is that you should not enable the testing repo. This has unstable packages and is used for testers to test updates before they go live. If you enable the testing repo, expect to have to fix things frequently. If you are desperately waiting for a specific package to be released either build it yourself from source or wait a few days rather than enabling testing.