Impressed with the quality of our little Asus Travelmate laptop that we use for trips, I bought my wife a new Asus Aspire 5 laptop (A515-43-R19L) when her old machine died. My intention was to replace its Windows 10 SSD with a new blank one, and install Solus Budgie on it, as it was the OS on her previous laptop, but I soon ran into some issues.

  1. It doesn't use traditional SSDs, but the new (M.2?) skinny ones. So I couldn't swap in one of the SSDs that we already have. The Aspire 5 also has what appears to be a normal SATA connector for a 2.5" drive, but in this computer the connector is offset enough that the 2.5" drive can't be mounted. At this point, I figured it was not a big issue, since a new skinny SSD wouldn't cost much, and I was still looking forward making to the change.

  2. I took a look at the UEFI "BIOS", and found that it offers just two alternatives for the boot order. (1) Microsoft special boot manager, and (2) the installed Windows disk. That left me with a bad feeling about being able to boot a USB drive with Solus on it.

My wife is not a techie, and I'm convinced that she would be a lot safer on Linux than Windows. There's no telling what kinds of links she might click on, and much of the content on Windows is aimed at selling her something. And the games she really loves are available on Linux in better versions.

Normally, I'd just rush ahead and plan on dealing with installation issues as they pop up, but this particular machine seems to be made specifically to run Windows, and any further cost and effort to install a different OS could be totally wasted.

A search of the forum for that model laptop returned nothing, so I thought I'd ask whether anyone here has already tried installing Solus on one. If I replace that M.2 SSD will I be able to get this machine to boot a USB installer in some way? Will Solus' EFI support work in an environment like this, allowing a Solus SSD to boot after installation? Thanks for any help with this!

    WetGeek

    This forum has such a good track record for problem solving, that I asked for help here first. Afterwards I tried a web search, and a member of the ASUS community came up with this:

    "a couple of pointers: F12 will need to be enabled in the bios to allow for booting from a usb stick. F2 gets you in the bios, F12 enable is under "main", if it is greyed out, you'll need to set a supervisor password for the bios under "security" then that'll allow you to change the F12 option. "

    So, they don't make it easy, but apparently I'll be able to get Solus installed. I'll order a new SSD now, and plan to install Solus as soon as it arrives. This is turning out to be a very good day.

        WetGeek I took a look at the UEFI "BIOS", and found that it offers just two alternatives for the boot order. (1) Microsoft special boot manager, and (2) the installed Windows disk. That left me with a bad feeling about being able to boot a USB drive with Solus on it.

        that's what I' going through now, since the solus install made the windows mbr go away. I'm ok with it, but I paid for the W10...my "bios" exists on some bizzare "uefi/legacy" married together bios and board. So I don't know if I'm grub or boot loader yet.
        Before I attempt a reconciliation of operating systems, I have to do my research, too.

        WetGeek but this particular machine seems to be made specifically to run Windows, and any further cost and effort to install a different OS could be totally wasted.

        that's the strange impression I got, too, with my msi setup.
        As for you concerns regarding the missus, if you can't dual boot then Solus over W10 as a rule🙂.
        Installing Solus on the new SSD and making it work will be an adventure. I saved my own self with the oldest trick in the book recently: taking battery out along with jumping cmos posts...(resets bios to defaults).

              brent that's the strange impression I got, too

              It wouldn't surprise me to find out that Microsoft pays OEMs to build computers that way, just to make it hard to install any competition. It almost worked on me.

              Were you trying to install Solus on the Win10 disk? I just got the M.2 SSD from Amazon that I ordered this morning, and plan to preserve the original Windows SSD in case we ever want it in the future. I plan to do the swap in the morning before my wife gets up.

              Any chance that the ASUS information I learned today will help you with your problem?

                  WetGeek It wouldn't surprise me to find out that Microsoft pays OEMs to build computers that way, just to make it hard to install any competition.

                  I accept this treachery as a given🙂

                  Will your information help me? Yes. Foremost it's prodding me to investigate what the reality of my boot scenario really is. It's a mystery. Windows came with machine but somewhere it still has a boot flag. But taken out of boot order--like disappeared' in bios. The MSI boot key claims it's sheer UEFI when loading but the bios claims there's a legacy marriage (It call itself "UEFI/Legacy" bios) so I know nothing yet because other work stuff is going on. If you press a toggle key to load a particular OS upon boot is that a true dual boot? Don't know that either. W10 disappeared. I have two OS's on two different drives but at least Solus boots. I have no idea what I'm doing or how to approach it, but the info you gave me is a good kick in the rear. Thank you.
                  PS--W10 was the main ssd drive. In solus live I installed Solus on the seperate sshd. Nothing has been the same since, probably because of me, but at least I have budgie. Also---I think we both can find a workaround for that 'strange impression' we had. Sorry if this gets nonsensical. I missed dinner🙂

                    i had new small lenovo laptop with win10 they have it setup that cant boot from usb some win protection crap came up once said it wasnt certified or sumthin.. couldnt even get into bios for some reason so i threw it away..lol I refuse to deal with win10!! (going from memory been awhile back)

                    WetGeek plan to install Solus as soon as it (the new SSD) arrives

                    Mission accomplished, and it was easy to modify the BIOS to allow selecting the boot drive, as in the "a couple of pointers ..." in my message, above. Now we're back to seven machines in this house running Solus, including six Budgie and one MATE.

                    If anyone's counting, you may have noticed that I missed a day. I had an adventure pulling unwanted vines from the wild blackberries along our private road. I disconnected a few large non-fruiting vines by snipping them near the roots, grabbed a bundle of them, and pulled them away from the bushes. I had to pull really hard, and when they suddenly let go, I ended up face down in the gravel road. I wasn't in any condition to deal with eleven tiny screws that day.

                    This morning, though, with a little help from some ibuprofen, I could handle them. Configuring the BIOS, removing the laptop's bottom cover, and replacing the SSD and the bottom cover only took about 10 minutes. After that, it was a very ordinary Solus Budgie installation. (I.e., very fast and easy.)

                    I installed 402 upgrades, installed some software, did a bunch of configuring, and did a backup. She'll be happy now, and I think she's much safer on Linux than Windows 10. Altogether, it was well worth the effort!