Re: 64bit BIOS changes to GUI Ubuntu Installer

2017-08-07 Thread Xen 

Jesse Steele schreef op 06-08-2017 19:29:

My father told me as a kid, "I can't make enough rules." That's how I 
feel about which BIOS settings need changing on each 64 bit machine I 
encounter.


I would suggest that's bad parenting ;-).

I appreciated the GUI Ubuntu installer using a one-time password to 
change some BIOS settings. But, more BIOS settings changes from the GUI 
installer may needed now, in the future if possible, I guess. Many of 
my problems came up with "Windows 10 only" boot options, "Launch CSM" & 
Fastboot to be disabled, and whatever other need-to-be-disabled BIOS 
setting gets invented in 2018.


So basically you are saying that the changing and ... modernizing 
BIOS/UEFI landscape is causing the issues.


For you, I mean.

I do have one Abit AX78 from around 2009 that needs changing BIOS 
settings or else the kernel won't load.


I have had a load of other motherboards from that period and never had a 
problem.


Personally I don't like hash tags and I also don't think it is something 
to do with 64-bit.


It seems more like the maze that people are creating with UEFI etc.

We have problems today that didn't exist before. This goes for most 
things.


I think this article kinda says it: 
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/choose-best-laptop-linuxubuntu/


"It’s never been harder to install Linux.

Don’t believe me? Just cast your mind back 10 years. Back then, it was 
just a matter of downloading an ISO, burning it to disk, pressing “next” 
a few times, and hoping you weren’t unlucky enough to have a Broadcom 
WiFi card. And if you didn’t fancy burning your own install disk, 
Canonical would send you one – for free. It was a wonderful time."


"Now, it’s less wonderful. Would-be Linux users have to contend with 
utterly awful hardware support, UEFI woes, and equipment designed to 
work with Windows, and Windows alone. If you want to break away from the 
yoke of Microsoft, you have to be a savvy hardware shopper."


But we already had 64-bit motherboards 10 years ago.

Ubuntu does have motherboard lists but they are woefully unupdated:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsMotherboards

As well as being a hierarchical list that doesn't work all that well, 
and regular people don't have access to editing the wiki after it was 
closed down for reasons of spam.


What you really need is a single, editable list (by everyone) to which 
people can add their remarks but this is too technologically advanced 
for us ;-) (sorry to put it like this).


You really can't ask for everyone to start including that hashtag 
whenever and wherever they write something about their motherboard. You 
may think that's decentralized, but really it requires a concerted 
effort.


Back in the day wikis were community places, now they are publication 
portals.


Same thing happened to OpenSUSE btw.


Changing the GUI installer to make these changes creates work for the 
developers, I know.


But how can a GUI installer change any BIOS settings? I am puzzled.

My point here is that _community awareness_ of 64 bit BIOS 
settings/issues being slightly different from one manufacturer to 
another could show developers what the big issues are. Just by knowing 
on forums, "this is that same old issue, now with the 
INSERT-MAKE-MODEL..." in forums, developers could quickly see what BIOS 
settings the GUI installer might need to try to change, or something 
else.


You're not telling me software is now directly capable of changing BIOS 
settings, are you?


I'm happy to move on from this topic. My contribution is to consider if 
"#mb64" in any such forum issues could become unofficial SOP. No need 
to create extra work at this point.


That's a lot of extra work for everyone.

All you need is a single editable page. That is easy to find. There are 
hardware lists everywhere. But I couldn't really find anything. Even if 
you did create single pages for each motherboard, you would still need a 
single list, not the hierarchical system we have on the wiki.


And people need to be able to contribute easily. It's very simple you 
know.


The wiki is not a place that invites contribution.

(Neither is that of OpenSUSE these days).

Well enough.

Regards.

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Re: 64bit BIOS changes to GUI Ubuntu Installer

2017-08-06 Thread Jesse Steele 
My father told me as a kid, "I can't make enough rules." That's how I 
feel about which BIOS settings need changing on each 64 bit machine I 
encounter.


I appreciated the GUI Ubuntu installer using a one-time password to 
change some BIOS settings. But, more BIOS settings changes from the GUI 
installer may needed now, in the future if possible, I guess. Many of my 
problems came up with "Windows 10 only" boot options, "Launch CSM" & 
Fastboot to be disabled, and whatever other need-to-be-disabled BIOS 
setting gets invented in 2018.


Changing the GUI installer to make these changes creates work for the 
developers, I know. My point here is that /community awareness/ of 64 
bit BIOS settings/issues being slightly different from one manufacturer 
to another could show developers what the big issues are. Just by 
knowing on forums, "this is that same old issue, now with the 
INSERT-MAKE-MODEL..." in forums, developers could quickly see what BIOS 
settings the GUI installer might need to try to change, or something else.


I'm happy to move on from this topic. My contribution is to consider if 
"#mb64" in any such forum issues could become unofficial SOP. No need to 
create extra work at this point.


Raise awareness. Optimize SEO on the topic for now. The answer will come 
in the future. #mb64


Linux love to all, especially Paul.



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Today's Topics:

1. Re: 64bit Motherboards are a minefield of config problems
   (Paul Smith)
2. Re: 64bit Motherboards - "all work" (Jesse Steele)


--

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2017 09:11:27 -0400
From: Paul Smith 
To: Jesse Steele ,
ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com
Subject: Re: 64bit Motherboards are a minefield of config problems
Message-ID: <1501938687.418.97.ca...@mad-scientist.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

On Sat, 2017-08-05 at 08:37 +0800, Jesse Steele wrote:

Generally, installing Ubuntu on 32 bit machines has been no problem.
However, different 64 bit motherboard manufacturers have different
native BIOS settings, many of which create problems for installing and
booting to Ubuntu.

Maybe you can give some examples of what kinds of problems you mean.

I've been running GNU/Linux distributions of all types exclusively on
64bit systems for probably 15 years or more and I've NEVER found a
motherboard or BIOS that gave me any problems.  Your message sounds like
many motherboards won't work with Linux and you have to search carefully
to locate a compatible one.  That's definitely not been my experience.



--

Message: 2
Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2017 07:32:31 +0800
From: Jesse Steele 
To: p...@mad-scientist.net, ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com
Subject: Re: 64bit Motherboards - "all work"
Message-ID: <9daeb345-d80a-cb88-75ba-eb9c1a7aa...@jessesteele.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"

Paul, I believe you. I tried to make it clear that it is the "settings"
and "native settings".

For example...

I have it on my ASUS Win8 notebook with no problem, my first ever.

But, an ASUS Win10 notebook required some /native/ UEFI settings to
change with a password on the install, then no problem.

A 2017 ASUS desktop motherboard would install with the same Ubuntu GNOME
16.04, but never, never boot. Even a local Taiwanese computer shop can't
get BIOS to load GRUB and their instructions were to enter BIOS every
time to boot to GRUB.

A Gigabyte motherboard with a 2015 BIOS won't boot the USB installer and
I've looked and that BIOS has no update available. /So far in my
searching, I think/ the install partition must be 4GB or less or else a
DVD. This is the first time I had this problem, still unresolved.

An Acer 64bit notebook installed it with no problem, once we figured out
Acer BIOS requires the F12 boot menu turned on as the only option to
install it from the USB.

An HP notebook had RAID set from BIOS, but no RAID utilities?even though
forums talk about it in other HP motherboards?and the only solution I
could find was to set it to AHCI, use Gparted to create the msdos file
system.

I could go on.

Every motherboard has different requirements, different BIOS settings
that need to be changed, and it's a minefield.