Arch Linux

Reynolds

Member

Registered: 2013-07-31

Posts: 1

Lenovo Ideapad U400 With Arch Linux

Hello everyone -

I've done a lot of research, but I haven't found a lot of information that hit this nail on the head. I want to install Arch on a Lenovo Ideapad U400. I do not want to dual boot with another OS. To my understanding, the BIOS uses UEFI. According to this post, UEFI can be disabled.

BIOS Version is 57CN30WW.

Under Configuration, there is a "Boot Speed" option. The choices are:

Fast - The system will enter fast boot mode and save a lot of time to boot to Windows.
Normal - The system will boot under normal legacy mode.

The most helpful link I've found was from LinLap, with an article on the Ideapad U400. But even this article is... empty.

I don't want to tear apart the boot partition if I don't even know if the hardware will support Linux. Worse, I don't want to be like this guy and brick my machine. Windows sucks, but it's better than having a $300 paperweight.

Do you guys have any specific advise about Lenovo laptops and Arch? Is it at all similar to the Thinkpad T400?

And yes, I've seen the Installation Guide, searched around the forums, and checked the FAQ.

System Specs:

Processor:
Intel Core i5 2450M @ 2.50GHz
Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology
Cores: 2
Threads: 4

Ram: 8.00 Dual-Channel DDR3 @665 MHz

Mobo: LENOVO Emerald Lake

Graphics: Generic PnP Monitor (1366x768@60Hz)
Intel HD Graphics Family (Lenovo)
ATI AMD Radeon. HD 6470M (Lenovo)

HDD: 466GB Western Digital WDC (Sata) 5400 RPM

Optical: MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ8A7AS

Audio: Contextant SmartAudio HD

Touchpad: Lenovo Pointing Device - Synaptics

Webcam: Lenovo EasyCamera - Vendor Unknown (to Speccy)

Network:

Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030
Intel(R) 82579V Gigabit Network Connection

schmidtbag

Member

From: NH, USA

Registered: 2011-02-08

Posts: 344

Re: Lenovo Ideapad U400 With Arch Linux

While I don't have experience with UEFIs, I'd be surprised if this didn't work.  First all, if you want to make sure linux is even functional, why not use a Live CD of another distro?  Or, use a separate hard drive temporarily (or a flash drive).

Boot speed could mean 2 different things - it either triggers in-depth POST diagnostics, or, it's a Windows-only feature that enhances something like standby or hibernation.  Also, that guy didn't brick his device, he screwed up his MBR. Since he was using Windows, he didn't have an easy way to repair it and needed the install disc, which isn't supplied.  Whether or not the recovery partition is overwritten, usually accessing the recovery partition isn't done through the MBR but rather the motherboard boot menu (sometimes there's a F# key you have to press, typically F11).

Honestly, I wouldn't be too paranoid about this.

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: Lenovo Ideapad U400 With Arch Linux

The boot speed thing is a windows 8 compliance thing.  In order to be windows 8 certified, machines have to make it through POST within a certain amount of time.  So in order to achieve this, HW manufacturers had to adjust what is done in POST in order to fit within these time limitations.  Before, the POST would actually initialize a good deal of the hardware.  This is what makes booting off a USB possible, or even using your USB keyboard to enter the bios.  But that takes a couple seconds to make happen.  So this mode strips down all the "unnecesssary" scanning for devices and initialization and just does the bare minimum to then load the efi application that is first in the boot list.

In a way, this makes sense, since the HW is typically initiallized some three times before you make it to a booted system (at least without the fast boot).  It would first be done by POST, then you get dropped into the bootloader.  If you are using something with a mass amount of features such as grub, quite a bit of the hardware gets initialized again.  Then the bootloader loads the kernel, which then polls for and initializes all that hardware again.  So in a way it is cutting down on at least one step of initialization.

Lenovo tends to have some pretty excellent firmware (for the mast part... but cfr would disagree).  So UEFI should have no problem.  That is of course, after you learn how to use UEFI.  But if you want to use fastboot, then you will have to use UEFI.  This mode will also disable the legacy bios mode.  But you can definitely use either to successfully boot your system.  In fact, you can have both on your system at the same time.  The MBR booting uses the first sector of the disk to boot, while UEFI uses the special EFI System Partition.  So these in no way conflict with each other.

Oh yeah, and the fast boot also will turn on SecureBoot by default.  So unless you want to set up the prebootloader (or mjg's shim), then it might be good to turn on fast boot, but then go through and make changes using fast boot only as a starting point for configuration.