Monday 28 October 2013

Installing Linux on Acer XC600

I was recently given an Acer XC600 machine with the instructions "Install a Linux system on this machine, I hate windows 8 and have already deleted it."

Whenever I'm given a challenge like that I am always quite happy to introduce somebody to Linux, but I didn't quite realise what a challenge it would be.

The main problem is that a lot of new computers are being sold with secure boot and it is enabled by default.  The official line from microsoft is that it is to stop any malware loading up at the time of boot and make your system more secure.  However after wrestling with this system for more than a week, I am not convinced.

There is a specific order which you must switch secure boot off otherwise it will not work, the annoying part is that it will let you boot up the liveCD and install the system, but upon restart the system will never load, giving a device error message.

Here are the steps, I seriously hope that this helps and avoids the huge amount of time I wasted on this relatively simple task.

1. Upon switching the computer on hit the delete key, this will take you into the bios

2. Go to security and change secure boot to "Disabled"

3. On the boot option, make sure CSM is "Enabled"

4. In advanced, go to "integrated peripherals" and change the SATA option to IDE (regardless of the actual hardware in the machine)

5. Save and exit bios

You will now be able to install a Linux distro from a CD, DVD or pen drive as before on the Acer XC600.

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