My UEFI expertise to date has been restricted to solely 2 laptop computer OEMs, HP/Compaq and dicot genus. I found the previous to be comparatively tough to figure with (see the recent Compaq and earlier H.P. tent posts), however the latter to be moderately straightforward (see draw a bead on One 725 post), particularly once putting in the most recent BIOS updates.
Well, even on the AO725 you had to work out the "secret handshake" of facultative F12 for Boot choose, so setting a BIOS arcanum before you may disable Secure Boot, however a minimum of once that's done, any changes you create to the boot configuration won't be indiscriminately overwritten on following boot.
Anyway, the purpose is that I actually have been craving for a chance to undertake a UEFI system from another manufacturer, and see however that compares to those 2.
That opportunity arrive in the week, once one in all the Swiss electronic retailers offered AN Asus R513CL for CHF 499 — (about €410 / £345 / $570) — compared to a standard retail worth here of regarding CHF 699. The configuration is pretty smart for that price:
Intel Core i5-3337U, 1.8GHz
Turbo mode a pair of.7GHz
4GB DDR3 RAM
500GB HDD
Intel HD 4000 graphics
15.6-inch 1366x768 show
2 x USB 3.0 ports
HDMI and VGA ports
RJ45 wired and 802.11 b/g/n wi-fi
SD Memory Card Reader
Super-Multi videodisc
HD Webcam
38 x 25.1 x 2.48/3.17cm
2.3kg
Of course it came preloaded with Windows eight, however the great news was that the disk was partitioned off with a D: drive of 250GB for "Data", thus putting in Linux did not need the standard opening move of reducing the Windows C: partition to form space, I simply deleted the D: drive and that i had many space. If I had been extremely determined I might even have reduced the C: drive to unlock even more room, however i do not assume that is necessary, a minimum of nonetheless, however it'd be within the future, as a result of my impression of this method to date is incredibly smart, and that i would possibly conceive to keep it to be used as a movement system.
More observations and thoughts regarding the hardware. I still assume that a 15-inch screen with solely 1366x768 resolution may be a waste, however that looks to be the quality for this sort of low-end (low-price) laptop computer. it's find it irresistible has the dire "Clickpad" touchpad, which does not have distinct buttons. If this were to show dead set be the maximum amount of a pain because the ClickPad on one in all my earlier H.P. dm1 systems was, then this laptop computer won't be staying with Maine for terribly long.
Fortunately, my initial impression of it's far better than that, thus we'll see. the ability offer may be a "brick that plugs directly into the wall" reasonably factor. that is reasonably nice in this it does not want another reasonably electric cord between the brick and also the wall, however be careful, it are often a pain due to the number of house it blocks on no matter you plug it into.
The physical construction of the unit looks okay to Maine. The case is plastic, however you do not get nice brushed metal cases during this worth vary, do you? The keyboard feels somewhat higher to Maine than that within the Compaq fifteen, the keys ar a minimum of terribly slightly contoured, and that they feel additional solid and stable.
Going through the primary boot and initial setup of Windows eight is basically identical because it was for the Compaq fifteen one or two of weeks agone, thus I will not trouble thereupon here.
Once Windows setup is finished, it is time to work out a way to boot Linux, so to examine whether or not or not Linux recognises and supports all the hardware.
Things got somewhat additional exciting at now, as a result of i could not notice something, either within the only a few papers that came with the system, or within the eManual (User's Guide) on the system, nor via a general search, that told Maine merely and clearly what key I had to press to induce the Boot choice menu.
I tried a range of them, as well as Esc, F9, F10 and F12, all to no avail. I checked the BIOS configuration (at least that was on F2) to examine if there was one thing I required to modify there to induce Boot choose, ala the dicot genus draw a bead on One, however I did not notice something like that.
However, within the method of going in the BIOS setup I did notice that the ASUS POST sequence looks terribly fast, thus there's extremely a awfully little time interval within which you'll press F2 before it's too late, and you're doomed also Windows so finish off and take a look at once more.
Armed with this data, i attempted once more to induce into Boot choose and this point found that if i used to be quick enough, Esc would get Maine there.
Also whereas blundering around within the BIOS setup I saw that there's AN choice to Enable/Disable Secure Boot, however I failed to see something regarding heritage Boot there: i ponder if this method does not support heritage Boot.
From what I perceive, having the ability to disable Secure Boot may be a demand, however heritage Boot won't be. Well, at now i am solely inquisitive about putting in Linux distributions that support UEFI boot, so is not getting to be a difficulty on behalf of me, a minimum of nonetheless.
So, once I had found out a way to get to the Boot choose, menu, i used to be able to install Linux. First up, as usual, was openSuSE thirteen.1. For people who may well be interested in why I perpetually begin with openSuSE, it's as a result of I notice the grub-efi configuration to be somewhat additional powerful and versatile thus i'm ready to piece it also no matter alternative Linux versions i'd install. This keeps Maine from having to race with POST to induce into the Boot choice menu whenever.
The openSuSE thirteen.1 Live USB stick shoed with no drawback, even with Secure Boot still enabled. The installation method was routine, the sole minor surprise was that the EFI boot partition for this method is on sda1, whereas it absolutely was on sda12 on each of my alternative UEFI systems. in fact this does not extremely matter, the installer finds and configures it mechanically anyway.
The installation completed while not a hitch, and it absolutely was time also Linux from the drive. I took a second to begin a shell window and check the EFI boot configuration that had been created by the installer. It looked smart, openSuSE had been further, each with and while not Secure Boot, and also the boot sequence list had been set properly. however would those settings survive a reboot? Tension...
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