Ubuntu on Proteus VI

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fuglaro

New member
Just in case someone out there wants to put Dual boot Linux and Windows on a Proteus VI, I thought I would describe how I managed to do it. It took some work arounds.

I started off with the laptop delivered with Windows 10 preinstalled on: Proteus 15.6" with RTX 2070 and a 500GB Samsung 970 EVO M.2 as the only drive.

First off I tried to install Fedora as Dual Boot. I made a Fedora Live USB (https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download/) and put the USB drive option first in the UEFI. No luck! My USB wasn't detected. I tried the F12 boot menu and it wasn't there! I then tried another USB drive - and nothing. I found both worked on my previous laptop which I was fairly sure was in UEFI without legacy boot enabled.I tried changing a bunch of UEFI options and still had no luck. I then proceeded to try to make the USB bootable image with Rufus (https://rufus.ie/) and every likely combination of settings I suspected. Still nothing. At this point I was more suspicious that something was wrong with the laptop than with what I was doing. I then tried to make a Windows 10 recovery USB using the same USB I had been using for Fedora. It worked! So the Proteus could indeed boot from USB! So something was wrong with my Fedora Live USB configuration. Clutching at straws, I replaced the contents of the Windows 10 recovery USB with the contents of the Fedora Live iso. Nothing! Not detected at all! Would that have even worked in a normal situation? Boot loaders are a little outside my expertise!

Then I tried Grub2. If there was something out there which would be compatible with the most hardware, it would be Grub2. Plus, if it worked, I might be able to chain load into any other USB drive. I used a second USB and followed the "Install Grub2" instructions with the UEFI 64-bit options from here: https://www.aioboot.com/en/install-grub2-from-windows/. I then remade the other Fedora Live USB the standard way for good measure. I put them both in the left USB slots and Grub2 booted! I was so happy to not see the Windows loading animation! So the Proteus was definitely capable of booting into a USB for something other than Windows. What had I been doing wrong? It dumped me in Grub2's command mode.

I found the partition of the Fedora Live USB with "ls" and attempting to chainload and waiting for my USB to light up and ended up running:
set root=(hd0,msdos2)
chainloader +1

Then it complained with something about an invalide EFI file. Was that what wasn't compatible? Was the EFI file for the Fedora Live USB broken in some way or in the wrong place? I then tried manually specifying the path to the EFI file:

set root=(hd0,msdos2)
chainloader /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI
boot

It worked! I was finally in the Fedora Live USB disk! It took me to it's Grub2 where I could start Fedora or install.

Unfortunately, Fedora kept hitting a black screen with a cursor. I tried nomodeset and a bunch of various other things like nouveau.modeset=0 by editing the kernal options from Fedora's Grub2. It wouldn't budge!

I didn't have *that* much love for Fedora so I decided to try my luck with Ubuntu.

I made a Ubuntu disk with Rufus like in https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/tutorial-create-a-usb-stick-on-windows#0 and interestingly, this also wasn't detected by the boot process, nor the boot menu! Thankfully it worked fine with the Grub2 USB workaround. What was wrong with all the Linux USBs such that the Proteus didn't like them? I was very glad for the Grub2 workaround. This one needed a slightly different partition (hd0,msdos1) and the capitalisation was different for the EFI file but TAB complete made that easy.

Ubuntu worked! I ran through the install shrinking the Windows 10 partition and allowing proprietary drivers in the install process and it had no problems at all. I image Ubuntu will be the more popular choice if anyone out also wants a Proteus VI to dual boot so thats good.

After the successful install, I rebooted and hit F12 to get to the boot loader. The Ubuntu partition was there in the boot menu! Launching it worked great! The next reboot I didn't hit F12 and it went straight to Windows without hitting the newly installed Grub2/Ubuntu and I didn't try to mess with the boot process to see if I could get it to default to that because I have long ago given up fighting to protect Grub2 from Windows 10 updates trampling over it. Sure enough, when I next booted into Windows it had a moan and did something saying it was repairing itself, but since I like using F12 to launch Linux, I was fine with it.

Just a note that on the Proteus VI, the F12 boot menu seems to take a little finesse. Repeated rapid hitting was my original strategy and it got me there less than half the time. I ended up going with waiting until the PC logo appeared and *immediately* afterwards holding down the F12 key.

So now I have a Ubuntu dual boot with Windows 10 and my tests back and forth today have gone great. Everything worked surpisingly well on Ubuntu including the graphics but I ended up installing Nvidia's driver because I've been playing with game dev and had been using OpenGL 4.5 and the default Ubuntu drivers were only on version 1.4. Nvidia's drivers came with version 4.6. Nice.

If anyone has any idea what I was doing wrong which led me to waste so much time and have to use the Grub2 USB workaround then please let me know! I am deeply curious!

And if anyone finds how to change the keyboard backlight colors (from Windows is fine) then please let me know too! I am trying to chase that one up.
 
Stephen M

Stephen M

Author Level
Many thanks for that information, rep given, it will help others.

I am not sure you did anything wrong, unfortunately there are some odd glitches with Linux at times. One thing springs to mind, did you disable fast boot or secure boot, that can have an effect. Not sure about the Proteus but on the Clevo chassis machines, instead of using the boot menu, use f2 to take you direct to the BIOS, possibly esc will do this as it is a different chassis.

Finally, welcome to PCS fora, always good to see a new 'nix user here.
 
M

MartXyz

Member
fuglaro you are an absolute hero. I also struggled to make any non-windows usb sticks boot but a grub2 one worked.

I have managed to get Fedora installed, but it was a bit of a ball ache so I wouldn't recommend it unless you really need it (I do for work). I used wired ethernet to get connectivity and used a network install iso in the other usb slot. That backs off to text install which has a VNC option. Then after installing (still text mode only after reboot) I logged in (over ssh) and installed the nvidia drivers from https://negativo17.org/nvidia-driver/

More info on: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/9rwr04/fedora_29_impossible_to_install_on_amd/

I have dual booting with windows 10 on SSD and Fedora on a separate HDD, which I have first in the boot order. The laptop can't handle it so it retries until I hit F12 for the boot menu which has other options for windows and fedora (which work). A bit funky but I generally want to choose what I'm booting into so that works for me.

Regarding the keyboard LEDs and such, there is now a control centre download available for windows. Fn-space might work for changing the LED brightness. The LEDs are off for me in linux (I'd already disabled them in windows so maybe that setting carries over).


The Proteus has extremely minimal bios options. No fast boot option. UEFI boot only. It does have optional secure boot (made no difference for booting off usb). Also it has about 50 thousand screws (many under stuck down plastic or rubber) which makes accessing the internals a pain.
 
F

fuglaro

New member
Stephen M said:
This is for a different PCS laptop but there is some very useful info in the post, including backlight stuff so it may be of help: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/foru...-Beaver-installaation-on-Optimus-IX-15-6-quot
Click to expand...

Thank you for the pointers, Stephen M. The BIOS/UEFI options already had the Secure Boot disabled, and like MartXyz, I couldn't find a fast boot option. I was really clutching at straws at one point and tried disabling fast boot in Windows. Like that was in some way related.

Thank you for the pointer on the keyboard drivers. I gave it a go and got a little way in but didn't have much luck. I thought I would wait a little longer for the Windows Control Center before perservering further. I don't need to change it from Linux. I just wanted to disable the rainbow color to be something more professional. As MartXyz just pointed out, they now have the Control Center download available so I am all sorted. Thanks a bunch, MartXyz!

MartXyz, I am super impressed that you got Fedora working! Nice perserverence with that! I wondered about trying an actual network install before I found the Grub2 workaround but didn't quite feel like learning how. Maybe its much easier than I imagined to set one up from another Linux machine but the most experience I have ever had with that was running through the ones provided by the lovely SysAdmins at my work. I didn't think about a network install iso providing a text only install interface. Nice thinking there!

Its interesting how the Proteus doesn't like auto booting to your Fedora disk without going through the F12 menu. It seems to be really stuborn about Linux boot partitions. I was half expecting it to ignore mine after the install, even through the F12 menu.
 
M

MartXyz

Member
It wasn't a PXE network install, it's the network install iso burned to usb that then downloads the packages, so it was a lot easier than setting up a local PXE boot server (and credit to the reddit thread for the idea). I still used the grub2 usb workaround to get it started.

I might have a poke around the EFI partitions (and look at the grub2 usb) to see if there's an obvious reason why the proteus hates booting linux so much.

(I too tried disabling fast boot in Windows...)
 
M

markh

Bronze Level Poster
Hi, I realise this thread is a bit old now so unsure if I'll receive a reply from either Martxyz or Fuglaro, but just in case:

I was wondering how stable you both find these workarounds to be? I'm looking at the Proteus to install Ubuntu 18.04 on as it has the spec I'm looking for and is exceptionally good value, but I'm worried about how much trouble the installation will cause me and if the workarounds are reliable. What you've both described above sounds like a bit of a nightmare! But if you think it's not too bad and stable then I would certainly consider it.

Thanks

Mark
 
F

fuglaro

New member
Hi Mark,

My Ubuntu work-around has been very reliable. I haven't had any issues with my set up. I've been using it extensively and it's been fine. My boot process still requires me to hit F12 to get to Ubuntu but that is the way I like it. I ended up finessing how to get to that menu every boot. You just hold F12 from boot up but release and repress quickly every second or so as it starts. Gets it every time.

This really is a great laptop and besides the trouble with the installation (it really was a nightmare but the workaround we found has worked well twice) I highly recommend it.

I've used it for web development, VNCing to a Mac for iOS development, OpenGL/C++ development and general Web Browser use.

I vaguely remember having to reinstall Nvidia's graphics card drivers after a Ubunutu install but that was just because I needed the latest OpenGL version for my dev work.

Good luck!

John
 
M

MartXyz

Member
It has been completely stable for me also (on Fedora). Same thing with having to smash F12 on boot but the boot cycle is literally just a few seconds if you miss it.

The nvidia drivers have been fine with kernel updates (using kmod package).

The "workarounds" were all for getting the installation process going at all so now the OS is installed they no longer apply really.

Overall I'm very happy with the laptop (it performs like a beast for games), temps etc. all fine. The only negative is the fans are quite loud and seem to run a lot. In Windows anyway - in Fedora it's mostly pretty quiet unless I'm pushing things hard.
 
L

loyalrobin

New member
I think you are my hero. I have a Proteus VIII and I'm having the same problem. I can boot Windows and Manjaro, but I tried Ubuntu, deepin and gparted with no luck. Hitting f12 wasn't showing the usb device. I'll try your workaround as soon as I can and I'll investigate more about this issue. I noticed that the iso structure is a bit different between manjaro and deepin, maybe the problem lies there. I'll post a screenshot as soon as I can.
 
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loyalrobin

New member
I confirm that your workaround is working on Proteus VIII.
fuglaro said:
My boot process still requires me to hit F12 to get to Ubuntu but that is the way I like it.
Click to expand...
I know you wrote this a long time ago, but I'll answer again since it could be helpful for others. I think this is easily fixable. I had the same problem, after installing GRUB didn't show up, it was booting directly into Windows. From Windows I could mount EFI partition and see that it was a little different than usual.
I followed this guide to mount EFI partition and navigate through it. Thanks to this you can see the structure of your EFI partition and then use bcdedit command as it's stated here, adjusting the path. In my case the path was `\SYSTEM\EFI\Manjaro\grubx64.efi`
 
G

GerPet

New member
loyalrobin said:
I confirm that your workaround is working on Proteus VIII.

I know you wrote this a long time ago, but I'll answer again since it could be helpful for others. I think this is easily fixable. I had the same problem, after installing GRUB didn't show up, it was booting directly into Windows. From Windows I could mount EFI partition and see that it was a little different than usual.
I followed this guide to mount EFI partition and navigate through it. Thanks to this you can see the structure of your EFI partition and then use bcdedit command as it's stated here, adjusting the path. In my case the path was `\SYSTEM\EFI\Manjaro\grubx64.efi`
Click to expand...
Thanks for this. I just bought a Proteus VIII and couldn't get my USB to boot initially, so this helped.

I don't have a lot new to add here, but I figure I could add my experience in case it helps anyone else. One caveat: I installed an extra harddrive with Ubuntu already installed on it so I had a step up (I was doing this so that I could still boot the USB for upgrades and other maintenance).

1) Create a bootable USB - take a note of the name of the USB.
2) Find the location of the grubx64.efi file on the USB - my path was /EFI/boot/grubx64.efi
3) In the BIOS disable Secure Boot
4) Update your Boot Order and ensure the USB drive is pushed above the other bootable devices.
5) Startup your machine - this is where you need to have grub2 installed and will need to follow the steps above if you haven't already.
6) From the grub2 to menu type "ls", which showed my harddrives and their partitions. "(hd0)" seems to be the drive and the "(hd0.gpt1)" seems to be a partition.
(hd0) (hd0.gpt1) (hd0.gpt2) (hd0.gpt3) (hd0.gpt4) (hd1) (hd1.gpt1) ...etc

7) You can display the name of the partition by typing "ls (hd0.gpt1)". Find the ones with the name of your USB.
8) Then we do the steps listed above taking into account if you probably want to use the first partition of your USB drive and the file name you found above. For me this was:
set root=(hd0,gpt1)
chainloader /EFI/boot/grubx64.efi
boot

Again, just hope this helps.
 
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