Many problems installing MX Linux alonside Windows 10

[kernelkurtz]

Unrelatedly related ....

I looked into the whole MSI laptop thing based on recommendations here, and a week ago I bought one. I had fifteen days to make it work before having to give up, reinstall my carefully saved Windows Recovery thing, and take it back. Today was the real make it or break it day, with access to hot Ethernet.

After another very long afternoon, I'm happy to report that it's working well enough. I've got wireless and audio and a backlit keyboard and all. HDMI over the big monitor. It was quite a lot harder than I thought it would be, and I think I only succeeded because I had the luxury of not caring about Windows or dual-booting. So I could carpet-bomb partitions and start over. And I did! More than once ...

The main hurdle was indeed having to use UEFI and think differently. The MX tool that downloads nvidia drivers helped some too. I still have some work ahead of me I think, getting the SSD to talk to the HDD and making it friendly to having multiple distros on their own partitions for testing purposes. But I have the main things I needed to have.

If money were no object I would happily spend the extra on a System76 rig that just ran out of the box (plus had Intel ME disabled). But given the difference between $800 + some learning pain, versus very similar specs on the Galago Pro for $1600 .... right now I'm happy to have those hundreds to spend on other important things.

[Pierre]

that's good - - you did get it working, satisfactorily.
- - it is doe-able - - you just need some perseverance .. ..

[Stevo]

Unrelatedly related ....

I looked into the whole MSI laptop thing based on recommendations here, and a week ago I bought one. I had fifteen days to make it work before having to give up, reinstall my carefully saved Windows Recovery thing, and take it back. Today was the real make it or break it day, with access to hot Ethernet.

After another very long afternoon, I'm happy to report that it's working well enough. I've got wireless and audio and a backlit keyboard and all. HDMI over the big monitor. It was quite a lot harder than I thought it would be, and I think I only succeeded because I had the luxury of not caring about Windows or dual-booting. So I could carpet-bomb partitions and start over. And I did! More than once ...

The main hurdle was indeed having to use UEFI and think differently. The MX tool that downloads nvidia drivers helped some too. I still have some work ahead of me I think, getting the SSD to talk to the HDD and making it friendly to having multiple distros on their own partitions for testing purposes. But I have the main things I needed to have.

If money were no object I would happily spend the extra on a System76 rig that just ran out of the box (plus had Intel ME disabled). But given the difference between $800 + some learning pain, versus very similar specs on the Galago Pro for $1600 .... right now I'm happy to have those hundreds to spend on other important things.

Ooh, could you give us "Quick System Info" from the menu? I might have some tweaks you can use for an even better experience.

I've also seen some reports that System76 laptops run great as long as you stick with Pop! OS, but people trying to use Debian or Debian testing with them run into all sorts of problems.

[Stevo]

Very true ... you can have a peek at their PPA here: https://launchpad.net/~system76-dev/+ar ... ntu/stable ... they try very hard to cherry-pick their hardware to create the best compatible experience using Ubuntu Gnome as a base for their OS. I'm sure that Stevo has had a long look at this to be able to offer his tweaks/suggestions ...

Actually, nothing at all for System76, just my experience with the MSI GP63 laptop, which has a pretty powerful Intel i7-8750H CPU, which is common now among the current power laptops. But I do know the secret 4 key combo to unlock the advanced BIOS settings for MSI, as well as the several Linux programs to set the RGB keyboard, including probably the coolest, keyboard-visualizer, which I packaged for our test repo. Besides being able to set all sorts of colors and effects with it, I can have the keyboard flash in sync with the music I'm listening to.

I'm also able to undervolt the CPU with the iuvolt script, which allows for a faster CPU speed when under stress and lowers maximum temperatures then, as well as provide longer battery life.

[kernelkurtz]

Ooh, could you give us "Quick System Info" from the menu? I might have some tweaks you can use for an even better experience.

I'm honored by the request. A small way to give back. Thanks for asking.

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System:
  Host: mx1 Kernel: 4.19.0-1-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 6.3.0 
  Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 Distro: MX-18.1_x64 Continuum Feb 9  2019 
  base: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Micro-Star product: GF63 8RC v: REV:1.0 
  serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: Micro-Star model: MS-16R1 v: REV:1.0 serial: <filter> 
  UEFI: American Megatrends v: E16R1IMS.106 date: 07/23/2018 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 48.8 Wh condition: 49.4/51.3 Wh (96%) 
  model: MSI Corp. MS-16R1 status: Discharging 
CPU:
  Topology: 6-Core model: Intel Core i7-8750H bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Kaby Lake rev: A L2 cache: 9216 KiB 
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 52992 
  Speed: 1400 MHz min/max: 800/2200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1400 2: 1400 
  3: 1400 4: 1400 5: 1400 6: 1400 7: 1400 8: 1400 9: 1400 10: 1400 11: 1400 
  12: 1400 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: i915 v: kernel 
  bus ID: 00:02.0 
  Device-2: NVIDIA driver: N/A bus ID: 01:00.0 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  tty: N/A 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel UHD Graphics 630 (Coffeelake 3x8 GT2) 
  v: 4.5 Mesa 18.2.6 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
  bus ID: 00:1f.3 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.0-1-amd64 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 6000 bus ID: 00:14.3 
  IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA8171 Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Micro-Star MSI 
  driver: alx v: kernel port: 3000 bus ID: 03:00.0 
  IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.14 TiB used: 5.48 GiB (0.5%) 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Kingston model: RBUSNS8154P3256GJ 
  size: 238.47 GiB 
  ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD10SPZX-17Z10T1 
  size: 931.51 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 217.87 GiB used: 5.48 GiB (2.5%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 
  ID-2: swap-1 size: 15.62 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap 
  dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 28.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antix.list 
  1: deb http://iso.mxrepo.com/antix/stretch stretch main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
  1: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch-updates main contrib non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
  1: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch main contrib non-free
  2: deb http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main contrib non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
  1: deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ stretch main non-free
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
Info:
  Processes: 286 Uptime: N/A Memory: 15.51 GiB used: 501.1 MiB (3.2%) 
  Init: SysVinit runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 6.3.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.12 
  inxi: 3.0.29 

One thing I've noticed via dpkg is that I seem to have way too many packages installed. 2000+ on a fresh install, about the same as an older system with plenty of added cruft like a dozen browsers. Seems like I should be able to safely get rid of a lot of xserver and nvidia drivers, but I haven't dug into which yet. I'm considering going the antix-core plus Xfce route, and have noticed a lot of intermediates like myself thinking alike and poking around for a documented procedure:

https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=12920

[Stevo]

Is Bumblebee working?

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optirun glxspheres64

vs

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glxspheres64

If you see glitches when scrolling in Firefox, use MX Tweak to switch to the intel driver with TearFree.

You can also get hardware-accelerated video decoding working for your Intel GPU by installing i965-va-driver and va-utils, then changing some settings in the player. I can play 4K h.264 and h.265 videos, and the CPU stays at the lowest 800MHz speed and use goes up a couple percent.

So far, it works in

QMPlay2
VLC
mpv
SMPlayer using mpv backend
Kodi
Handbrake for accelerated video transcoding

[explodingbee]

Hi folks,

In response to Head_on_a_Stick:

You asked me to type "parted --list" in a terminal and to show you the output.  Here it is:

******************************

demo@mx1:~
$ su
Password:
root@mx1:/home/demo# parted --list
Model: ATA HGST HTS721010A9 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:ot

Number  Start   End    Size   File system  Name  Flags
 1      17.4kB  268MB  268MB               ESP


Model: Verbatim STORE N GO (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 7747MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 1      1049kB  7747MB  7746MB  primary  fat32        boot, lba


Model: Unknown (unknown)
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 512GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name      Flags
 1      17.4kB  268MB   268MB                ESP
 2      268MB   52.7GB  52.4GB  ext4         MX Linux

******************************

Regarding your second request, I got to the bios utility, and changed the boot option to UEFI and then I booted from the USB drive.  I then typed in "efibootmgr -v" and here is the output:

******************************


demo@mx1:~

$ su
Password:
su: Authentication failure
demo@mx1:~
$ su
Password:
root@mx1:/home/demo# efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0003
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0003,0004,0005
Boot0003* UEFI: VerbatimSTORE N GO 5.00, Partition 1    PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x14,0x0)/
Boot0004* UEFI: PXE IP4 KIller PCIe Network Controller    PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1d,0x7)/0.0.0.0:0<->0.0.0.0:0,
Boot0005* UEFI: PXE IP6 KIller PCIe Network Controller    PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1d,0x7)/
root@mx1:/home/demo#

******************************

In response to Stevo:

I went back to the Aptio Setup Utility (the bios utility) but I did not see any option to set hotkeys.

Also, in your next post, you wrote:  "UEFI mode, Fast Boot is still enabled."  That is not correct.  I disabled Fast Boot.

You also wrote:  "That's why it's booting straight to Windows in UEFI mode."  And you wrote:  "That way it boots to GRUB instead of straight to Windows, and you can still boot to Windows from GRUB, too."  There seems to be misunderstanding here.  One of the main problems is that I cannot get back to Windows 10 and haven't been able to since I first installed MX Linux.  So I am not sure why you are saying that the computer is going to Windows.

You also said I should set boot # 1 as USB flash drive, boot # 2 as cd/dvd, and boot # 3 as the standard hard drive.  I did that.  You then said I should select the standard hard drive and click enter and then I should get options to have MX Linux as the first choice.  What happened was that I clicked enter on the standard hard drive and it just gave me the list of boot options (USB flash drive, cd/dvd, standard hard drive, etc.) and it gave me a way to change the order of that list.  It did not include anything about MX Linux or Windows.  I am not entirely sure that I am in the utility that you think I am in.  The utility I was in was called "Aptio Setup Utility."

Anyway, at this point the system boots up to a grub menu but the only option is MX Linux.  I cannot get to Windows.  This is the same state that my computer has mostly been in for a number of days now.

By the way guys, now another problem has come up.  When I shut down or restart the computer in MX Linux usually it does not shut down all the way and I need to push and hold the power button to get it to shut down.  This is not a good thing and it is a bit disturbing.

In response to Figueroa:  I have gone back to the Aptio Setup Utility and changed the boot option to UEFI and reinstalled MX Linux and the result was ... exactly like it was in the besginning.  It now just boots to the message which says ">>checking media presence......" Then after several minutes it goes to the Aptio Setup Utility (or I think sometimes it goes to another grub like menu [but it is not grub, I think it is part of the bios] which offers options, none of which go anywhere). I have to go back and change the boot option to Legacy and then it will boot to the grub menu with options to go to MX Linux but no option to go to Windows. Then I can boot into MX Linux on the regular hard drive (as opposed to a flash drive).

In response to Fehlix: You said I should go to MX Live and then install Grub-EFI pausing MX Boot Repair. First off, I a not sure what MX Live is. I am assuming you mean to boot to MX Linux from a USB drive. So I did that and I installed Grub-EFI using MX Boot Repair and the result was … drum roll … no improvement at all. There were several options to choose in using MX Boot Repair and I was not certain which to choose. Here are the options I chose and the corresponding results:

1) I selected “Reinstall Grub Bootloader on ESP, MBR or PBR (root).” On the next screen I chose to install on MBR. After the computer did some stuff it said “Process finished with success.” I then rebooted and I was then in exactly the same place as where I was before. I could boot to a grub menu which had only MX Linux and not Windows as a choice of what operating system to boot into.

2) I selected “Reinstall Grub Bootloader on ESP, MBR or PBR (root).” On the next screen I chose to install on Root. After the computer did some stuff it said “Process finished with success.” I then tried to reboot. The computer refused to shut down all the way and I had to hold the power button down to get it to shut down. When I restarted the computer I was in exactly the same place as where I had been before. I could boot to a grub menu which had only MX Linux and not Windows as a choice of what operating system to boot into.

3) I selected “Repair Grub configuration file.” After the computer did some stuff it said “Process finished with success.” I then tried to reboot. The computer then went to a black screen with a blinking cursor and refused to shut down further. I pushed the power button and then quickly the computer typed some stuff and shut down. When I restarted the computer I was in exactly the same place as where I had been before. I could boot to a grub menu which had only MX Linux and not Windows as a choice of what operating system to boot into.

By the way, I should probably state that I tried to install several other Linux oprating systems alongside Windows 10 on this computer prior to trying MX Linux. I tried Solus, Linux Mint Debian Edition 3, Puppy and probably one or two or three more. In each case I installed the appropriate ISO on a flash drive and in each case the system would not install at all. It was only when I tried the same thing with MX Linux that the operating system seemed to install (but then I had all these problems). I am mentioning this because there may be some fundamental incompatibility here that no one is aware of. Maybe the newest version of Windows 10 contains some new stuff that makes it hard to install Linux alongside it? (I recently tried to download a fresh copy of Windows 10 to reinstall it and I was given a choice of one dated October of 2018 and one dated earlier. So there are at least two versions of Windows 10.)

In response to j2mcgreg: I pressed FN + F3 while the mouse was attached and it did not turn off my touchpad. Also, I am not sure what you meant about “the touch pad detecting overhead movements.” Do you mean that the touch pad is detecting movements of my fingers which are over the touch pad but not actually touching the touch pad? (Because that might explain what I am experiencing here.

In response to Bluesguy: As you suggested, I went to gparted and took a screenshot of the info relating to my 500 Gb SSD hardrive. You can see that screenshot here: https://firstamendmentcafe.files.wordpr ... laptop.png I don’t know if that image shows whether or not the Windows 10 operating system is still there on my hard drive. Maybe some of you out there can tell. (Note: I installed the MX Linux operating system on a 50 Gb partition that I created, separate from Windows 10, to the best of my knowledge.) (I also have a 1Tb hard drive on this computer but I don’t see it there in gparted.)

In response to Stevo’s post # 20: You said I “need to move the MX 18.1 efi file to the first option, ahead of the Windows Boot Manager that's currently #1, in the boot device hard drive options.” Well, I rebooted and pressed the upper delete key while the system was booting up and I went into the Aptio Setup Utility (which I think is the bios utility). There I did not see any mention anywhere of the MX 18.1 efi file. The boot order was as follows:

# 1: USB Hard disk
# 2: CD/DVD
# 3: Hard disk: HGST HTS721010A9E630
# 4: Network: Killer E2400Boot
# 5: USB CD/DVD

Below the above listed boot order were the following options:
Hard disk drive BBS Priorities.
Network Drive BBS priorities.

The system is in the Legacy boot mode, Fast Boot is disabled and Secure Boot is also disabled. (I previously reinstalled MX Linux in UEFI mode. I needed to subsequently change the boot mode to Legacy in order forget it to boot at all.)

So I did not see any option anywhere to select MX 18.1 efi file and move it to a first option or to anywhere.

In response to JayM: To be forthright, yes, I have developed a negative impression of MX Linux. The system should be more user friendly. On another computer I previously installed Linux Mind Debian Edition and it offered a dual boot without any problem or difficulties, as I recall. (But I tried to install Linux Mint Debian Edition 3 on this new computer and it would not install.)

Well, guys, at this point I frankly would like to just go back to Windows 10, although I don’t like that I think they may be monitoring much of what we do with that OS (and then maybe using that info to find and wipe out anyone who tries to challenge the system of power that is in place). (In addition to my inability to install a dual boot Windows-MX Linux system I am still dealing with the cursor jumping all over the place constantly and also almost every time I shut down the computer I have to hold the power button down to make it shut down. Who would want to deal with all these problems?) In the last few days I have tried repeatedly to download Windows 10 so that I could reinstall it but the file is 4.7 Gb in size and no computer I have used has so far in recent days has been able to complete the task. (I have just old half broken Windows computers in my house to use to do that. I can’t use my new and powerful MSI GL73 laptop because it only has a working Linux operating system on it at this time (and not Windows). When I download the file in MX Linux on that computer I can’t seem to copy it to a flash drive, which I think I need to do so that I can get the file to a windows system so I can burn the ISO to a flashdrive. Maybe there is a way to make the ISO into a bootable flashdrive from within MX Linux?) If Windows 10 is still on my system maybe I can restore that. I do appreciate that many of you guys on this forum have tried to help me out and I am willing to listen to suggestions you guys have at this point but it is true that I have developed a negative impression of MX Linux at this point (as JayM said he thought I might have).

-Vincent

[Stevo]

You won't see any EFI boot options in Legacy mode. And Windows won't boot in Legacy mode.

Also, I meant that my laptop has fast boot enabled, and has no problems booting MX and Window from GRUB in UEFI mode.

You need to turn UEFI back on, reinstall MX in UEFI mode, and then make those changes I said to do in UEFI mode, not legacy. That way, you get both MX and Windows entries in the GRUB boot menu.

If you've erased Win 10, install that first, then adjust the partitions to allow space for MX.

[explodingbee]

Hi Stevo: As far as I can tell, installing MX Linux in UEFI mode and changing the boot mode to UEFI or Legacy are two different things. I installed in UEFI mode and then separately changed the boot mode to Legacy. If I don't do the latter (and if I leave the boot mode in UEFI) then I can't boot to anything.

[Stevo]

In UEFI mode, you go to the boot options you listed, and move the selector down to the drive where you installed GRUB in esp mode:

# 3: Hard disk: HGST HTS721010A9E630

H̶i̶t̶ ̶E̶n̶t̶e̶r̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶e̶l̶e̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶b̶o̶o̶t̶ ̶e̶f̶i̶ ̶f̶i̶l̶e̶s̶.̶ ̶M̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶M̶X̶ ̶1̶8̶.̶1̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶p̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶s̶t̶.̶

Edit: Sorry, the menu item to edit is down near the bottom, as

UEFI Hard Drive BBS Priorities

Once you move the 18.1 EFI file to the top, this

# 3: Hard disk: HGST HTS721010A9E630

becomes

# 3: Hard disk: MX 18.1

Remember that you don't see any of this unless UEFI is enabled and you install MX in UEFI mode, and GRUB in "esp" mode.