Arch on UX32VD Zenbooks SSD drive

greengold · 2012-11-23 16:20:24

Hi all!
I bought asus zenbook ux32vd laptop which have 24GB SSD disk primary for caching.
Of course I want arch on this device and I was thinking about installing it to SSD drive to speed up things a bit.
I have found an article describing process of installation of windows on this SSD drive but I did not found one abou installing archlinux on it.
Can someone provide me some know-how or kind of tutorial to install linux on ssd? Also to mention, I want dual-boow with win...
Is it worth it?

Thanks in advance!

WonderWoofy · 2012-11-23 16:37:57

Make sure you disable caching from windows. Though I think as soon as you partition the drive and create a filesystem, it will not be able to cache it anymore anyway. All you have to do is use it as a regular drive. Mine comes up as /dev/sdb. I opted to not get the one that comes with the machine though and instead put that money towards a Mushkin Atlas 120GB mSATA. Seriously, it was going to be >$50 for the 16GB SSD cache (16GB!!!), and that Mushkin mentioned was <$120 online.

But just treat the drive as if it were a normal drive. Beware though, I have heard of some instances in which machines do not support the drive as a bootable drive. Basically the drive does not show up in the pre-boot environment and is not an option to boot from in the bios. Not sure about the zenbooks though.

I would say just leave windows as is on the other drive, and install arch only on the ssd. My arch installation only takes 5.7GiB between / and /var, so 24GiB should be plenty of space. If you end up needing more space for stuffs, you can always then shrink down windows later.

Also, I am not entirely sure about this, but I think you can actually use part of the drive as a normal drive and the rest as a cache still.

greengold · 2012-11-24 10:09:02

Thank you!
But, sadly, I could not manage to make USB archlinux boot medium. Its still missing "vmlinuz".... I tryed FAT16 and FAT32 usb filesystems but does not work at all. It had boot once an in that instance udev was unable to discover devices...
So I ended up with ubuntu installed, which was pretty strightforward and performance is pleasant. Still having some boot issues with uefi like this one

hunterthomson · 2012-11-26 09:07:31

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SSD

greengold · 2012-11-26 11:13:37

hunterthomson wrote:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SSD

and what exactly is author pointing on?

greengold · 2012-11-27 21:00:51

guys, please..
I still cannot get it work
I am following the exact instructions on wiki but all I'm getting is just blank screen after selecting UEFI boot option and then Archlinux (first entry).

What else should be done?

Thanks!

The_Shambler · 2012-11-27 22:57:58

Do you have a setup using / and /var or just / ? Have you looked at either of these things? Windows-Arch Dual Boot or this one Arch on USB Key.

greengold wrote:

I am following the exact instructions on wiki

I'm not sure this one will get you too far, as the basic instructions has a pretty good walkthrough on how to boot with UEFI.

blank screen after selecting UEFI boot option and then Archlinux (first entry).

Do you mean you see the boot manager's OS selection and it's not booting after that? Does it say anything else? What boot manager are you using?

Sorry for all the questions, just trying to understand the problem better.

greengold · 2012-11-28 15:17:36

The_Shambler wrote:

Do you have a setup using / and /var or just / ?

I can't boot medium (: its not a thing how is my disk partitioned!

The_Shambler wrote:

Have you looked at either of these things? Windows-Arch Dual Boot or this one Arch on USB Key.

here, we are talking about UEFI bootable medium!!

The_Shambler wrote:

I'm not sure this one will get you too far, as the basic instructions has a pretty good walkthrough on how to boot with UEFI.

basic instructions for booting uefi archboot iso are not working for me! that's why I'm asking here for a consistent manual.

The_Shambler wrote:

Do you mean you see the boot manager's OS selection and it's not booting after that? Does it say anything else? What boot manager are you using?

I mean USB wiht UEFI is shown in default UEFI boot manager, and when I select UEFI <that usb> choice, 3 entries shows up (one for Archlinux boot option, another 2 for EFI shell) so I select first one and then endless blak screen comes.

The_Shambler wrote:

Sorry for all the questions, just trying to understand the problem better.

4sure, but please think about my questions first to avoid unncessary confusing posts!

Thank you!

The_Shambler · 2012-11-28 15:56:54

Ah, my bad greengold. I was under the impression you were having issues with booting your SSD. I didn't realize you were having issues with the USB boot medium and hadn't gotten to the install portion yet.

Sad to say, I used a CD for my install as I had issues with the USB medium before, but I know the zenbook doesn't have a CD-Drive so getting the USB to work is key. Good luck!

drenninghoff · 2012-11-28 17:20:15

Hello greengold, I am running Arch Linux on the UX32VD, so I can give you some instructions

There is a bug in the 3.6 kernel, that makes the display go black when booting. This will be fixed in the 3.7 kernel. There are two ways to bypass the problem.

The first and better one is to just close the laptop lid after you think that OS has finished booting. Then arch linux will go into standby mode and when you resume your display will work. Or you can connect an external monitor to the laptop, this will work aswell.

The other one is to pass "nomodeset" as a kernel booting parameter in GRUB. But that will disable KMS and will render X not usable.

For other help take a look in the wiki, there's a dedicated page for the UX31A, these instructions will also work for the ux32vd.

Oh, and when you've finished installing be sure to check out bumblebee/bbswitch, to disable the nvidia gpu, so the laptop fans go off more often.

If you have more questions, just ask

Czarcasmo · 2012-11-28 17:21:11

Answer was posted while I was writing a response. Doh!

Czar.

Last edited by Czarcasmo (2012-11-28 17:22:31)

greengold · 2012-12-12 20:42:05

this is very interesting.. I could not belive that it was not immediatelly published on wiky!
Also, I think that unpacked image by bsdtar should have 777 permissions! - I really dont know if its relevant but after I changed permissions, boot was successfull!

Thanks guys
[SOLVED]

Arch Linux

#1 2012-11-23 16:20:24

Arch on UX32VD Zenbooks SSD drive

#2 2012-11-23 16:37:57

Re: Arch on UX32VD Zenbooks SSD drive

#3 2012-11-24 10:09:02

Re: Arch on UX32VD Zenbooks SSD drive

#4 2012-11-26 09:07:31

Re: Arch on UX32VD Zenbooks SSD drive

#5 2012-11-26 11:13:37

Re: Arch on UX32VD Zenbooks SSD drive

#6 2012-11-27 21:00:51

Re: Arch on UX32VD Zenbooks SSD drive

#7 2012-11-27 22:57:58

Re: Arch on UX32VD Zenbooks SSD drive

#8 2012-11-28 15:17:36

Re: Arch on UX32VD Zenbooks SSD drive

#9 2012-11-28 15:56:54

Re: Arch on UX32VD Zenbooks SSD drive

#10 2012-11-28 17:20:15

Re: Arch on UX32VD Zenbooks SSD drive

#11 2012-11-28 17:21:11

Re: Arch on UX32VD Zenbooks SSD drive

#12 2012-12-12 20:42:05

Re: Arch on UX32VD Zenbooks SSD drive

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