Installing Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver on Lenovo G50-45

My Lenovo G50-45 has Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04, Debian 9 and two more partitions to install whatever Linux I feel like.

I downloaded Ubuntu 18.04 Desktop ISO on 27 April 2018 and tried to install on spare partition. It failed to install Grub with error message 'grub-efi-amd64-signed' package failed to install target/ and also wiped menu entries of Ubuntu 16.04 and Debian making my system unbootable.

I had to boot again on Ubuntu 18.04 Live USB, install and run Boot Repair to get the menu entries back.

Today I installed Ubuntu 18.04 once again with following command:

sudo ubiquity -b

which installed without Grub.

After login in Ubuntu 16.04 I updated grub and got the entries of Ubuntu 18.04 and could boot Ubuntu 18.04.

But for anybody trying to install Ubuntu 18.04 without any other Linux present should use following procedure on AMD machines:
 

1) Boot Ubuntu Live DVD/USB in testing mode and open terminal
2) Run installation process without installing bootloader by:
sudo ubiquity -b
3) Press "Continue testing" after installation is over.
4) Mount newly installed file system into /mnt:
sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
sudo mkdir /mnt/boot/efi
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi
for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done
(where sda2 is the root partition and sda1 is the efi partition)
5) Load efivars by:
sudo modprobe efivars
6) Reinstall grub-install for a 64bit version
sudo apt-get install --reinstall grub-efi-amd64
sudo grub-install --no-nvram --root-directory=/mnt
7) Change root to /mnt and update grub
sudo chroot /mnt
sudo update-grub
8) Move and rename the installed bootloader
cd /boot/efi/EFI
sudo cp -R ubuntu/* BOOT/
cd BOOT
sudo cp grubx64.efi bootx64.efi
9) Reboot the system.

TintCore Linux on Lenovo G50-45

About 8 years ago I tried TinyCore Linux and developed a couple of tcz files to the project.

Yesterday I downloaded the latest TinyCorePure64-7.1 ISO and made a UEFI bootable USB stick to try it. I could boot to the desktop and connect through wired network (wireless wlan0 was not detected out of the box but that was expected from the Tiny Linux distribution). I installed Opera Browser.

After searching on the Forums, I installed following tcz files:

wireless-4.2.9-tinycore64.tcz

           wireless_tools.tcz

firmware-rtlwifi.tcz

wpa_supplicant-dbus.tcz

wpa_supplicant.tcz

After this wlan0 was detected but I had to make wpa_configure.conf file and connect through following command:

$ sudo wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/opt/wpa_configure.conf &

I have added the above command to /opt/bootlocal.sh to automatically connect on next boot.

Now I can explore this Tiny Linux distribution once again.

Running Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus on my Lenovo G50-45 Laptop.

I had downloaded Ubuntu 16.04 Daily ISO and was periodically updating it using zsync. I updated it this morning to version 20-Apr-2016 22:30 and assuming it that it is going to be the Final version installed it to hard disk replacing Ubuntu 14.04.4 Trusty (which I was not using anyway).

See the screen shot below with Unity Launcher moved to Bottom using Unity Tweak Tool (which is now available in Software).

Transfer files from Android to Ubuntu 15.10 Lenovo G50-45 Laptop using Bluetooth.

I struggled to use Blue-tooth on my Ubuntu 14.04 Lenovo G50-45 and eagerly waiting for Ubuntu 15.10 which has Linux Kernel 4.2 and proper drivers for using Blue-tooth on this Laptop. As soon as Ubuntu 15.10 Development version Kernel was upgraded to 4.2 I installed it and happily using it. Although the Laptop got connected through Blue-tooth to my Android Phone I had to try various things including  obex-data-server etc. to transfer the files.

On 22nd Oct 2015 final version of Ubuntu 15.10 was available I downloaded the ISO and made a USB stick and decided to connect Android phone to the laptop using Blue-tooth on Live Ubuntu 15.10.

I had to install Bluetooth Manager to transfer files to and from Android Phone to the laptop.

Happily running Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf on my Lenovo G50-45.

Update on 21/04/2016: Now more happy running Ubuntu 16.04

I purchased Lenovo G50-45 Laptop in December 2014 and installed Ubuntu 14.04 in dual boot with pre-installed Windows 8.1 as per this post.

When you install any Linux Distribution on a new Hardware it works but not 100% and there were following problems:
1. Screen brightness could not be adjusted.
2. Wifi was erratic.
3. Bluetooth did not work.

Screen Brightness worked after installing Realtek Proprietary Driver but it broke on update in April 2015. I removed the Proprietary Driver and upgraded to Kernel 3.16 through Hardware Enablement Stack which installed the Open Source radeon driver and problem 1 was solved.

Wifi problem was solved creating /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723be file as follows:

 echo "options rtl8723be fwlps=0" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723be.conf

 For Bluetooth I had to wait till Ubuntu 14.04.3 was launched with Kernel 3.19 and it worked sometimes but not on every boot (I wonder why?) after adding following ppa and the driver:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hanipouspilot/rtlwifi
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rtl8723au-bt-dkms rtlwifi-new-dkms linux-firmware

On questioning I came to know that I had to wait for Linux Kernel 4.2 when Realtek drivers are included.

On 9th Sep 2015 I came to know that Linux Kernel 4.2 was included in Ubuntu 15.10 and I downloaded the ISO and tried it on my Laptop as per this post. I updated the ISO for couple of days through zsync and it was booting properly every day.

Yesterday I decided to install Ubuntu 15.10 on my hard drive and found that installer crashed, however, I used the following workaround to run the installer and installed:

sudo -H bash -c 'ubiquity gtk_ui'

I am happy to report that there is no need to add any rtl8723be file for wifi, radeon driver is perfect and Bluetooth is working on installed Wily Werewolf.

File sharing via Bluetooth between Lenovo G50-45 Ubuntu Laptop and Android device.

I had installed Ubuntu 14.04 on Lenovo G50-45 Laptop as per this post in December 2014 and solved some problems like screen brightness as reported in this post after enabling LTS/HardwareEnablementStack.

This Laptop has Realtek Wireless Network Adoptor which also works as Bluetooth device. Although the Wireless disconnection problem was solved by setting options rtl8723be fwlps=0 in /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723be.conf file the Bluetooth did not work.

After Ubuntu 14.04.3 update I got Linux Kernel 3.19 and the Bluetooth could be used after installing the driver as follows:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hanipouspilot/rtlwifi
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rtl8723au-bt-dkms rtlwifi-new-dkms linux-firmware

I could send file via Bluetooth from the Laptop to Android Device but Android device failed to send the file. This could be corrected after searching for Personal File Sharing on Dash and checking the boxes Receive the files in download folder over Bluetooth and Notify about received files.

Ubuntu 14.04 on Lenovo Laptop G50-45 with Kernel 3.16.

As written on this post I installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS in dual boot with Windows 8.1 in December 2014.

The proprietary driver fglrx worked fine till I updated it to newer version on  12th April 2015. After the update I could not login and had to remove fglrx driver and come back to radeon.

Today I installed Kernel 3.16 (original kernel 3.13) through LTS Enablement Stack with following command:

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends linux-generic-lts-utopic xserver-xorg-lts-utopic libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-utopic libegl1-mesa-drivers-lts-utopic

 The open source driver radeon is working perfectly on Kernel 3.16

This Laptop has Realtek Wireless Network Adapter and its driver rtl8723be was causing disconnections and required reboot to connect again. This is solved by following command:

echo "options rtl8723be fwlps=0" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723be.conf

Now Ubuntu 14.04 is working perfectly on this Laptop.

Installation of Ubuntu 14.04.1 in dual boot with Windows 8.1 on Lenovo Notepad G50-45

There are many visitors to this post through Google Search when they look for suitable Linux Distribution for Lenovo G50-45 but this is an old post and I recommend that anyone looking to install Ubuntu on this Laptop should go for Ubutu 16.04 LTS and not 14.04, however, if you are looking for instructions for Dual Boot with Windows you should read this post but install Ubuntu 16.04 LTS which has no issues.

Lenovo Notepad G50-45 Specifications:
Model Name 80E3
CPU AMD E1-6010 1.35G
RAM 2G
HDD 500 GB
Display 15.6" HD LED
OS Windows 8.1 WB EM

I downloaded 64 Bit Desktop ISO of Ubuntu 14.04.1from Ubuntu and used it to create USB Start up Disk from Ubuntu 12.04 on another machine.

After shutting down the Windows 8.1, I inserted the USB Start up Disk in USB port on the Lenovo Notepad and pressed the NOVO button as shown in the diagram below:

 The display brought the BIOS screen below:

 I selected Boot Menu and selected to Boot from USB, on Grub menu I selected Try Ubuntu and could boot into Live Ubuntu 14.04.

In Live Ubuntu every thing worked well except I could not mount the Windows NTFS partitions getting errors that Windows was not shutdown properly, although I had selected to shutdown while in Windows. After reading about shutdown of Windows 8.1 I decided to shutdown Windows completely by running following command:

Shutdown /s /t 0

Once again I started Ubuntu Live session as above and I could now mount the NTFS partitions. I could have resized NTFS partitions using gparted but decided to do it in Windows.

In Windows I tried to shrink C:/ partition but was not allowed to shrink more than 50%. Once again after reading on the net I did following settings in Windows as advised on this blog:

1.Disable Hibernation
2:Disable Paging in C Drive temporarily
3:Diable System protection in c Drive temporarily

After doing the above settings I could shrink the partition to the extent I desired (48 GB for Windows 8.1). I created new NTFS partition leaving 80 GB unused for Ubuntu installation.

Once again I started Ubuntu Live session and created one EXT4 and one SWAP partition to be used for Ubuntu. Then I decided to check whether Windows 8.1 is accepting these changes or not by booting into Windows. Everything was Ok in Windows. Windows had a Recovery partition on the hard disk which I could copy to a USB disk.

Finally I decided to install Ubuntu on the EXT4 partition. After the installation I could boot into Ubuntu as well as Windows from grub installed on MBR.

The Laptop had Radeon Display Driver and the default ati driver was not working properly. After installing proprietary fglrx driver it is ok.