G55VW - Linux DualBoot

[Perzonallica]

Hi,

is there any chance to make a DualBoot on this NB? Because I tried not long ago, but I totally messed up something. I tried to Install Ubuntu 12.04. The installation was successful, but when I rebooted the system, some errors came up from nowhere: "Please insert a bootable disk" or something similar: "Can not find bootable system". Sorry I forgot what was it, but I could not start (boot) any OS.

I think that the problem is somewhere in the BIOS, maybe the Windows boot manager? Can I disable it? Or it is very important to this NB?

Thanks for the help...

[iDope]

I got Linux Mint 13 working on it using the Ubuntu UEFI Boot instructions at:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFIBooting

and then creating a boot entry for Grub from the Laptop's BIOS which has a nice option of adding EFI boot entries. IMO that is a great alternative to having to use an EFI shell or the efimanager from withing Linux.

The only deviation from the guide which I think is necessary is that you should do grub-mkconfig > /mnt/EFISYS/EFI/grub/grub.cfg

instead of

touch /mnt/EFISYS/EFI/grub/grub.cfg (as mentioned in the Ubuntu instructions)

Here is what the EFI entry looked like in the BIOS menu (Assuming you follow the other intructions from the Ubuntu UEFI Boot help page to the letter)

Name: GRUB2 (You can use any here)
Device: Whatever your BIOS menu has pre-configured
Path: \efs\grub\grub.efi (Note that I did not use fs0:\ as mentioned in the example because the Device entry above already specifies the partition)

[john_from_ohio]

Of course another option is putting in something like virtual box ( free ) and then running linux in a vm ... which avoids all the fiddling around with EFI stuff.

I am an oracle database geek and have a 300 gb fixed size vm on my 2ndary 1 tb drive running OL 6.2 ( Oracle Linux clone of Redhat ) and an oracle database 11.2.0.3.2 over there.

[iDope]

I agree with you for the most part and MOST of the linux stuff I'll do at work is from the VirtualBox VMs I have running from within Windows. But at home I really need the smooth Desktop experience with no graphics lag and shaky windows. I installed Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon 64bit in a VM (Latest VirtualBox and VBoxTools) but stuff like right-clicks on the desktop were laggy and somtimes the pop-up would get stuck.

It works way smoother with the actual video hardware kicking in. I haven't tried Ubuntu (Unity) though maybe that works better from inside a VBox VM.

[Perzonallica]

Thanks iDope!

[Muskoka]

What desktop GUI did you use with Mint 13?

I burned the Mate and Cinnamon CDs and neither one will load the desktop. I get the boot menu and then just a blank white screen, I don't think they support the video card, mine is a 670was yours the 660 ? Both of the live "CDs" work on my old desktop.

[Muskoka]

Nevermind, working now.

[HrKristian]

Setting up Dual Boot on the G55VW was one of the most annoyings things I've had the displeasure of doing.

ASUS' partitioning is completely ludicrous, I had to use gdisk to delete that useless recovery partition, only then I was able to use gparted (or the installer) to merge the recovery and DATA partition for linux and create a SWAP.
The installer was unable to detect disk partitions and the Windows OS before that.

Regular GRUB install during installation went to hell for me, luckily booting into a Live session and using Boot Repair made it easy enough, as it supports EFI now, pretty much just a two-click operation.

[Zygomorphic]

Can't you turn EFI off in the BIOS? My G53SX has UEFI support, but it is disabled by default. I guess that is the reason that I never had any problems. Still, it might be worth a try.

[rewben]

nice tips. i use mbr instead of gpt, i.e. remove all partitions, create a mbr disk, do a fresh install of w7, install linux.

before doing all that i have created the recovery dvds.