[Solved]New Install on NVMe drive while keeping windows in a corner.

wrobat · 2019-03-27 23:02:58

Ok, I have just gotten a new lenovo ideapad 530s with a 256G NVMe drive. After a lot of diisabling in bios I finally was able to get bunsen's live media to start. When I got gparted started, I tried to resize the windows' "basic data partition" but it told me i can enlarge but not shrink. Gparted is telling me it can't read it and need ntfs-3g but it is installed.

I am not use to this 'new' technology and windows '10'. I remember years ago there was talk about not needing swap on a ssd? So, I was wondering what you guys would recomend as to how to install on this computer. Which partitions I can wipe and which I can just resize? Ideally I would like to keep windows on it just to keep shamed in the corner collecting just and cob webs for a day that I mess up so bad that it is the only thing I can get to work.

Thank you for your input!

Last edited by wrobat (2019-03-30 20:39:59)

ohnonot · 2019-03-28 07:29:52

wrobat wrote:

I tried to resize the windows' "basic data partition" but it told me i can enlarge but not shrink. Gparted is telling me it can't read it and need ntfs-3g but it is installed.

wild guesses:

windows 10 defaults to never actually shutting down the machine but putting it in hibernation, and putting some sort of lock on the partitions involved.
this can be changed but since i have never administered a windows 10 machine i have to ask you to search the www.
maybe the partition is really full.
(sorry, i just realized you want to shrink, not enlarge. important info nevertheless) is there actually some free, unpartitioned space immediately behind the partition you want to enlarge?
partitioning is one of the few things where physical location & order actually matters. if, e.g., there's free, unallocated space in fronT of the partition in question, you have to move the partition to the left first, and can resize it only then. Etc.

I remember years ago there was talk about not needing swap on a ssd?

not sure what that was about, but horrible things can happen when a system runs out of memory, so i'd say no, you should have swap. you should set swappiness to a low level, though, to avoid wear on the ssd.

PackRat · 2019-03-28 09:37:22

Did you try to resize your partitions from within Windows 10?

Also need to disable Windows 10 fast boot shutdown; look that one up, it's easy but I forget the actual steps.required.

Also, when you shut down Windows 10, hold the Shift key down when you click the Power off. That will do a full power down of Windows 10.

Last edited by PackRat (2019-03-28 20:17:13)

stevep · 2019-03-28 19:17:55

Your hardware also has a really good chance of being too new for the Debian Stretch 2016 vintage kernels/drivers/firmware/mesa/Gparted, etc. These can be overcome with use of stretch-backports, but it might not be even possible to install to get to that point.

Re fast boot: it's actually fast shutdown in the Windows Power options, just tell the Google to search "disable fast shutdown windows 10". Many people confuse that with the "fast boot" setting in the BIOS/UEFI setup, which is totally different, and I, at least, can leave it enabled on two different brands of laptops and still dual boot.

Last edited by stevep (2019-03-28 19:18:22)

wrobat · 2019-03-28 20:50:20

Ok, I found the fast boot/shutdown here I will see if it works. Thank you for the help.

wrobat · 2019-03-28 22:39:23

Well, I was able to resize windows partition. Bunsen Labs was able to able to install to the new partition, but on reboot I couldn't get to grub. It would just reboot. I'm going to try to install Debian proper.
Maybe I need to flag the drive as bootable?

stevep · 2019-03-29 20:46:36

Did you also disable Secure Boot in the BIOS? Sometimes you also need to add the new Linux efi file to a list of trusted ones in the BIOS, and then move that ahead of the Windows one in the boot device order. If that sounds like a PITA, it's not by accident, it's a strategy to discourage use of alternative operating systems.

The new hardware warnings also apply to Debian. If that fails, you could also try MX Linux, which already has all those backports on the Stretch base, and then "Bunsenize" MX if you want.

wrobat · 2019-03-29 20:59:02

For some reason I don't have a UEFI option for Bunsen. Secure boot is off, I disabled everything. I was able to run the live media just fine.

wrobat · 2019-03-30 15:00:27

I had gotten Manjaro and at the boot menu I had option to run other uefi bootloaders and it listed Bunsen on hd1,gpt1. My bios still doesn't show it as an option. I also flagged the Bunsen partition as bootable to no avail.

Any ideas why it would not show up?

Last edited by wrobat (2019-03-30 15:03:29)

stevep · 2019-03-30 19:44:55

You should be able to install inxi in Manjaro if it's not there by default, and give us the output of

inxi -Fxxz

So we at least we know what hardware we're dealing with here. Or I put a lot of work into getting Stretch-based MX 18 to support newer hardware, so you could also try booting an MX Live USB and run the same command there. But vanilla Debian/BL might be just too old now to support your hardware.

wrobat · 2019-03-30 20:39:21

Ok, I got Bunsen booting now. I had to edit the efi bootloader order, which it wasnt included in. I used efibootmgr in the installed Bunsen OS.

Thank you for everyone's help, I appreciate it.

stevep · 2019-03-30 23:51:03

I still doubt you have full hardware functionality, especially your graphics. This is from a lot of experience. Could you please install inxi in BL and give us the results of that inxi command above?

#1 2019-03-27 23:02:58

[Solved]New Install on NVMe drive while keeping windows in a corner.

#2 2019-03-28 07:29:52

Re: [Solved]New Install on NVMe drive while keeping windows in a corner.

#3 2019-03-28 09:37:22

Re: [Solved]New Install on NVMe drive while keeping windows in a corner.

#4 2019-03-28 19:17:55

Re: [Solved]New Install on NVMe drive while keeping windows in a corner.

#5 2019-03-28 20:50:20

Re: [Solved]New Install on NVMe drive while keeping windows in a corner.

#6 2019-03-28 22:39:23

Re: [Solved]New Install on NVMe drive while keeping windows in a corner.

#7 2019-03-29 20:46:36

Re: [Solved]New Install on NVMe drive while keeping windows in a corner.

#8 2019-03-29 20:59:02

Re: [Solved]New Install on NVMe drive while keeping windows in a corner.

#9 2019-03-30 15:00:27

Re: [Solved]New Install on NVMe drive while keeping windows in a corner.

#10 2019-03-30 19:44:55

Re: [Solved]New Install on NVMe drive while keeping windows in a corner.

#11 2019-03-30 20:39:21

Re: [Solved]New Install on NVMe drive while keeping windows in a corner.

#12 2019-03-30 23:51:03

Re: [Solved]New Install on NVMe drive while keeping windows in a corner.

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