Installing Ubuntu on the Acer Spin 1 has been proving to be quite the hassle to me. Fortunately; following these steps allows other to easily install Ubuntu on the Acer Spin 1 and possible many other Acer UEFI devices. Installing the bootloader will likely fail steps are provided to recover from this and perform bootloader repair.

Steps install without bootloader

  • Boot from live USB (desktop iso only not server!)
  • Press try ubuntu
  • Open terminal
  • Execute: sudo -s
  • Execute: ubiquity -b
  • Continue installation using your own requirements and desires
  • Check the available discs and partitions with sudo fdisk -l. The partitions are assumed to be on mmcblk0 but they could also be on mmcblk1.
  • Execute: sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 /mnt were_ mmcblk0p2_ is the root partition.
  • NOTE: root partition for lvm / cryptluks will be in /dev/mapper/ directory instead!
  • Execute: sudo mkdir /mnt/boot/efi
  • Execute: sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/boot/efi mmcblk0p1 is the efi partition
  • Execute: for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done
  • Execute: modprobe efivars
  • Execute: efibootmgr --verbose
  • Execute: apt-get install --reinstall grub-efi-amd64
  • Execute: grub-install —no-nvram —root-directory=/mnt
  • Execute: chroot /mnt
  • Execute: update-grub`
  • Installing grub-efi-amd64 might hang or fail do not worry if that’s the case continue with bootloader repair.

Steps bootloader repair

  • Install rEFInd onto a usb and boot it
  • Select the install from the menu
  • Be patiented booting takes some time
  • Login using username
  • Open terminal
  • Execute: sudo -s
  • Execute: apt update && apt upgrade
  • Execute: update-grub
  • Execute: apt install grub-efi-amd64
  • Running grub-efi-amd64 will hang on post-installation
  • Kill apt by executing ps aux | grep apt and using the PID to call kill PID
  • Execute: dpkg --purge --force-all grub-efi-amd64
  • Execute: update-grub
  • Note this will prevent any grub updates from being installed by aptitude

References