Installing Ubuntu on an Acer Aspire Laptop Computer

Introduction

Around November, 2019, I bought an Acer Aspire laptop computer to replace a Sony Vaio that I had been using since February, 2004. The Sony Vaio was running Slackware 14.0, but I loaded the new Acer with Ubuntu 18.04, first trying it out with a live distribution on a flash drive.

The entire procedure worked well, but there were a few subtle configuration details needed to make it work at all. What I did is detailed here in case any of it might be useful to someone else.

Why Acer, Why Ubuntu?

What attracted me to the Acer laptop was the clock speed, number of cores, and the solid state mass storage. This table compares it to what it replaces.

The solid state mass storage (SSD) and huge main memory are fairly standard today, although the SSDs are usually half that big, but the clock speeds in laptops are often half this or less.

The above table also shows the host name assigned to these machines, distinguished by the small difference in clock speed.

Since my work involves scientific calculations like computer simulations of chemical and physical processes, a faster processor is always better. Some 80% to 90% of the run time of much of my code can run in parallel, meaning that four cores (processors) make a big difference, eight would be better, but many more than that would not speed it up much more.

Although I have used many different Linux distributions over the years, Slackware 3.1 was the first one I installed in 1996 on a 200 MHz Pentium and remains my favorite. Indeed Slackware 9.1 was installed on toad30 in early 2004. The reason I liked it is that it was possible to configure pretty much anything I needed from a graphical screen, mice of various kinds, dial up and then broadband internet connections, email, multiple processors, web sites, remote access, and more, back when these features were new and poorly supported. But these things are standard now and configuring them is pretty much automatic in distrbutions like Ubuntu, although still not so much in Slackware.

On the other hand, Ubuntu is complicated and has many things going on that you do not want, some of them fairly outrageous. More on fixing them further on. But I miss the simplicity of Slackware. This table shows the number of processes typically running when I am doing my work and the number of file systems in operation from the ps and df commands.

Ubuntu Live on a Flash Drive

The problem with installing a Linux distribution on a laptop computer is, or used to be, the non-standard laptop hardware that may or may not be supported by free software. With a desktop computer, I can reformat the disk and install Slackware, secure in the knowledge that I can make all the hardware work. But with a laptop machine, I would like to try it out with a live distribution to see if everything works with it before I reformat the hard drive and destroy whatever Microsoft offering was on it. With the hard drive erased, it would be hard to return the computer if it did not work for me.

The flash drive with the live Ubuntu distribution was made on the toad30 Sony from the web site https://ubuntu.com/desktop by downloading the 18.04 version and writing it to a flash drive as root with

dd if=ubuntu-18.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdb

Some changes were needed in the BIOS on the new toad31 Acer in order to boot from the flash drive. The F12 boot menu had to be enabled and secure boot needed to be disabled.

To enable the F12 boot menu, the BIOS was entered by pressing the F2 key once or twice a second after switching on until the boot menu showed up. With the right arrow, Main was selected, then F12 Boot, then Enter. Enabled was selected then Enter.

Secure boot needs to be disabled or the selected boot device will not work. For that went back to the main menu, selected Security, selected Set Supervisor Password. Then entered a password. Then secure boot could be disabled. F10 was pressed to save the settings and reboot. From now on it will request the supervisor password to enter the BIOS but not to select the boot device with F12.

From then on one could select the device from which to boot by pressing F12 repeatedly when the Acer logo displays after switching on.

From the F12 menu, one can choose either the whole flash drive or partition 1. Either way, one gets a menu to choose installing or trying it out, which takes the default, running the live system, after only a short delay. It boots directly to a graphical screen, from which one can try out Ubuntu on the Acer.

The upper right menu allows WiFi connection to an available router and from there to the internet. A connection to the old toad30 could be made by ssh with Nautilus, with the selection "Other Locations" at the bottom. Entered

ssh://192.168.0.30

Installing Ubuntu

Clicked on Install running Ubuntu Live and set up the WiFi connection..

The problem right away was that the only device found was /dev/sda, which is the flash drive containing the live system. Some BIOS changes were needed. Entered BIOS by holding F2 while turning on. Went to Main and SATA Mode. Changed RST with Optane to AHCI. This is required to get Ubuntu to detect the SSD. Now it found the SSD and offered to erase the disk and install. This produced /dev/nvme0n1 with two partitions:

Partition 1, type ESP, 512 Mb
Partition 2, type ext4, 477 Gb

A useable Ubuntu system resulted.

BASH Prompts and Aliases

Most people want to configure the shell to their liking. The following is what I did.

The bash shell reads /etc/profile, which sources /etc/profile.d/*, then reads ~/.profile, which sources ~/.bashrc if it is a bash shell. So the latter seems to be the right place to add statements at the end to do these things:

• Fixed the prompts, different colors, red for root, blue for others. In the following ESC is the Escape character that introduces color codes.

  if [ $USER = 'root' ] ; then
  PS1='ESC[01;31;1m$ ESC[00m'
  PS2='ESC[01;31;1m> ESC[00m'
  else
  PS1='ESC[01;34;1m$ ESC[00m'
  PS2='ESC[01;34;1m> ESC[00m'
  fi
  export PS1 PS2
  

• Set aliases and undo earlier ones.

  unalias ls ll l
  # This gives columns even through a pipe; use ls -1 for single column
  alias ls='ls -C'
  # These give colored output and columns, even through a pipe,
  # and / and * trailing directories and executables
  alias ll='ls -lF --color'
  alias la='ls -aFC --color'
  alias lf='ls -FC --color'
  

  Note that colored ls can be piped into less and viewed in color with less -r
• Put the current directory first in the PATH. Note that ~/bin and /usr/local/bin are already there, conveniently enough.

  export PATH=.:$PATH
  

Installing Software

Although installing an Ubuntu distribution provides a working system with the Firefox web browser and the LibreOffice document software, there is nothing much else that a programmer needs. Fortunately, all manner of software is available in packages that resolve all dependencies just by doing

apt install packagename packagename ...

apt update
apt upgrade

A few other useful apt commands are

apt autoremove

apt list packagename

apt search packagename

apt show packagename

All of these commands that install programs must be issued as root. The others that show information are available to any user.

File Transfer

File transfer can be done with the Nautilus file manager as described earlier. But sftp is available with

sftp ppp@toad30

192.168.0.30	toad30

Fixing Annoyances

The following paragraphs describe a few annoying things I found and how they were fixed more or less in the order of most annoying first.

• Users and Passwords. Had lots of trouble with this. What I really want is to allow login as root and users walter and guest with no passwords. I have no need for passwords because the computer is always in a locked building or with me and there is no remote login. Can edit /etc/shadow to remove the second, password, field, but then cannot su to that user. It asks for a password, and nothing one types is acceptable. Managed to lock myself out of root this way.

  Recovery from root lockout involves holding Shift or ESC down during power on. Allows selection of recovery mode, from which one can issue

  passwd root
  

  Then can reboot, go to root, and fix the other users' passwords. What good are passwords when you can defeat them so easily?

  Finally changed the root password to a single letter and left walter and guest with no password.

  A graphical login with no password was arranged by changing two files, /etc/gdm3/custom.conf and /etc/pam.d/gdm-password. Here follows a patch script for the changes, made by saving a copy of the file before changing it and then doing diff -u oldfile newfile.

  --- /etc/gdm3/custom.conf.old	2019-12-29 13:38:00.816132838 -0500
  +++ /etc/gdm3/custom.conf	2019-12-29 13:39:38.200357465 -0500
  @@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
   #  TimedLoginDelay = 10
   
   [security]
  +AllowRoot = true
   
   [xdmcp]
  

  and

  --- /etc/pam.d/gdm-password.old	2019-12-29 13:38:35.260658344 -0500
  +++ /etc/pam.d/gdm-password	2019-12-29 13:39:58.663852279 -0500
  @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
   #%PAM-1.0
   auth    requisite       pam_nologin.so
  -auth	required	pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet_success
  +#auth	required	pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet_success
   @include common-auth
   auth    optional        pam_gnome_keyring.so
   @include common-account
  

  Now a reboot lets walter and guest login without being asked for a password and one can su - to root, giving the one character password. But another user cannot su - guest without being asked for a password, for which none are acceptable.

• Unattended Updates. This outrageous activity was shut off by clicking on Activities, then entering Software in the search box, choosing Software & Updates. Then changed "Automatically check for updates" to Never. It seems to be working in that there is no activity that I did not initiate in /var/log/apt/history.log.

  To make doubly sure, I edited /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic to put the 0 in this line

  APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "0";
  

• Swap Ctrl and Caps Lock Keys to put them where they were always supposed to be. Tried this:

  setxkbmap -option ctrl:swapcaps
  

  That survives exiting the terminal and starting another one. But it reverts when one logs out and back in again.

  To make it permanent across logins and across rebooting, edited .etc.default/keyboard as in this patch script:

  --- /etc/default/keyboard.orig	2020-01-02 20:32:02.447125890 -0500
  +++ /etc/default/keyboard	2020-01-02 20:34:55.910941711 -0500
  @@ -5,6 +5,6 @@
   XKBMODEL="pc105"
   XKBLAYOUT="us"
   XKBVARIANT=""
  -XKBOPTIONS=""
  +XKBOPTIONS="ctrl:swapcaps"
   
   BACKSPACE="guess"
  

  Then issued

  dkpg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration
  

  The correct answers to all the questions were already highlighted; hit Enter.

• Failure to Start. There have been a couple of occasions when the computer failed to turn on after pressing the power button or when the screen turned black and no amount of pressing keys or moving the mouse would revive it.

  Once it happened after it was left plugged in and charging for days. A helpful article on the internet suggested it was overcharged, needed to be discharged and the static bled off. I just waited an hour or so and pushing the power switch started, asked for the BIOS supervisor password, and went to the BIOS. Had to again disable secure boot and change SATA to AHCI but then it started Ubuntu and could log in.

  It seems to be a bad idea to leave this computer plugged in all the time. So I unplug it when not using it and when it is shut down.

  Another time, hitting the power button brought up the ACER logos as usual but then it hung with the Ubuntu logo. Held onto the power button for several seconds to turn it off then pushed the power button again. It came up with a Grub menu showing these three options:

  Ubuntu
  
  Advanced ...
  
  System Setup
  

  The thing to do is to hit Enter to choose the first, highlighted option. It started up fine.

  Yet another time I accidently blanked out the screen by clicking on something in the upper right panel. Could not get it back, forced power off, then rebooted. Came up in grub, tried to boot, went to initramfs rescue mode with message

  Alert! UUID=e16..... does not exist. Dropping to shell.
  

  From initramfs issued the reboot command and it came back to grub.

  The problem here appears to be that the BIOS parameters that had to be set so that Ubuntu could find the SSD got reset and the SSD was no longer visible. Thus there was no operating system to load. All the following parameters need to be restored to what was entered to install Ubuntu, the F12 boot menu had to be enabled, secure boot needed to be disabled, and SATA Mode changed from RST with Optane to AHCI. After Save and Exit the BIOS, it rebooted just fine.

  One of the disadvantages of SSD is that it is not as permanent as a hard drive. At least the data were not damaged, only the configuration reset, and it can be changed back.

• Disable Automatic Suspend. It's a real pain to have the computer shut down while you are in the middle of something, have to fiddle with the mouse to wake it up, then log in again. I want it to suspend when I request it and not when I haven't. This can be arranged by issuing the command gnome-control-center, choosing Power and setting Dim screen when inactive to OFF, Blank screen to Never and Automatic Suspend, Plugged in to OFF. Then choose Privacy and set Automatic Screen Lock to OFF. Now you can blank the screen with the F1 key and fiddle with the mouse to bring it back exactly where you left it.

• System Problem Report. From time to time windows pop up saying there was a system problem and whether to report it, which I usually don't. When this happens, typically when shutting down or starting up, there is usually a new file in /var/crash.

  I have found that if I do nothing with the files in /var/crash except list the directory to see that they are there, the windows keep popping up again and again. But if I access the file, for example, read it with less, then the windows no longer appear until the next crash and next new file appears in /var/crash. A suggestion on the internet was to delete all the files in /var/crash. That works too, to get rid of the pop up windows.

• Icons on the Desktop. At first, some of the new directories under user walter were appearing in a column at the left of the screen, along with the trash can. These can be gotten rid of by installing the package gnome-tweaks, starting it with Activites, type tweaks, then to Desktop, and set Show Icons off.

  The background can be changed with Activities, type settings, and select Background.

  Controlling what appears in the far left, Favorites, column depends on whether it already has a .desktop entry in /usr/share/applications. If it does, you can start it by typing from Activities. Then it will have an icon in the Favorites column. Right click this icon and select Add to Favorites.

  Now if this doesn't work, then an entry is needed in .local/share/applications. Here is one named xpat2.desktop that worked for the xpat2 solitare game.

  [Desktop Entry]
  Comment=Solitare
  Terminal=false
  Name=Solitare
  Exec=/usr/games/xpat2 -rules Klondike
  Type=Application
  Icon=solitare
  

  Have no idea what icon file it is using, but it shows something.

• Enhance the Date and Time Display. The default date display at the top of the screen has just the day of the week and the time. Issue this command to include the month and day:

  gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface clock-show-date-true
  

• Configuration Options in VIM and BASH. The default in vi (really vim) does automatic, file type based indentation while you are typing. This is seriously annoying when it suddenly indents code thinking it knows better than you do what you are entering. I prefer to disable this altogether and indent how I want where I want. This line entered into ~/.vim/vimrc will do it:

  filetype indent off
  

  The present ~/.vim directory was empty, so wrote a new vimrc therein.

  The other annoyance is that by default it takes two hits of the tab key in bash to get a list of possible word completions. The first tab completes it if there is only one possibility. If there are others, the bell rings and you have to hit tab again to see what they are. Created a new file ~/.inputrc with this statement:

  set show-all-if-ambiguous on
  

  Have to restart the terminal. Now one tab completes the word if there is one possibility and shows a list if there are more. You can go through tabbing and typing just enough to limit the possibilities until you get what you wanted.

• Command Not Found Message. By default in Ubuntu, bash responds to an unknown command with a message about how to install the missing command, which is handy when the system is first installed and lots of stuff is missing. Tells you the package name to save you hunting it up. But getting that message from every mistyped command line gets tiresome after a while.

  It is handled with the command-not-found package, which could be removed, but then you might have to replace it with something else. Easier to just put this into ~/.bashrc:

  unset command_not_found_handle
  

All of the files created in the present user's home directory were copied to the others.

Printing and Scanning.

My WiFi printer and scanner is on the local network so I pointed the browser to http://localhost:631 to install a CUPS printer, which worked and I could print.

The initial Ubuntu install included groff-base but not groff, ghostscript, imagickmagick, netpbm, and evince but not gv. Note that one can view .pdfs as text with less, apparently using pdftotext.

Was not able to detect any scanners with scanimage -L even after installing sane and xsane and editing /etc default/saned and /etc/sane.d/net.conf. So broke down and installed hplip, which was afraid to do for fear it would break the existing installation of the printer. Now did hp-setup. Tried for an Ethernet or Wireless scanner but none was detected. Checked Manual setup and entered 192.168.0.99, which was the IP address of the printer, and it detected it. The only choice was to install this printer, which was done with trepidation. It finished normally with no other questions. However scanimage -L now detected the scanner and my scanning programs work.

Now printing worked just as before. In fact, a new printer was installed in CUPS, but it was not the default printer and thus changes nothing. Wonder if it would work better than the default one previously installed.

Making Debian Packages

A way is needed to install my own programs and it makes sense to use what the distribution provides, in this case the Debian package facilities. To do this one installs the binaries, man pages, and configuration files in a temporary directory with the directory structure that they would have when installed. In addition, a file named control is constructed in a directory named DEBIAN in this same temporary directory.

Here is about the simplest example of a control file:

Package: scanfax
Version: 2.1
Architecture: amd64
Depends: sane, tcl, tk, ghostscript, netpbm, libjpeg-turbo-progs
Maintainer: Walter Eastes
Description: Programs to scan various documents
   Included the program scanpages, scanphoto, and scancard to
   scan these documents easily.

Here's how to make the .deb package from the directory structure in tmp:

dpkg-deb --build --root-owner-group tmp scanfax_2.1.deb

dpkg -i scanfax_2.1.deb

Lots more capabilities are available with Debian packages, such as pre and post install scripts, but I seldom use them.

This page was last updated in June, 2021.