Installing Cinnamon on 32GB eMMC drive

[pauloz]

I purchased a budget laptop just for my personal studies only. It’s an Ollee ML130S 13.3" laptop with Intel Apollo Lake Celeron N3350, 32GB eMMC flash memory and 4GB RAM. It came with Windows 10 Home, which I need for both apps.
My problem is the 32GB “drive” rapidly got full, so I decided to install a 128GB 2242 M.2 SSD, which it has provision for. I managed to transfer Windows 10 over to this SSD and so far so good, except I don’t have any audio – no solution as yet found and after extensive research, not likely to.
I deleted the partition on the eMMC (now unallocated space), but I would like to install LM Cinnamon on the eMMC and use that for browsing, emails etc. As Linux users would understand, I don’t like using Windows for that purpose.
After reading the little information on the internet about these eMMC devices, it appears they are a handful to try and boot into, probably because they are soldered to the motherboard. I tried a live USB stick but all I got was a blank screen. It seems that BIOS settings have to be manipulated but I can’t find any consistency in the comments already made about what are the correct settings. Others outrightly frown on trying to play around with these eMMC devices.
Is anybody able to lead me in the right direction? With thanks.

[Mute Ant]

"I tried a live USB stick but all I got was a blank screen" Fix that first. Live Session Mint doesn't use the motherboard drives at all.

Booting, it's not Linux in charge, it's isolinux or grub and they are not as versatile as a running Linux. The ISO boot loader doesn't have drivers for every possible store. DVD or USB2 or PATA or SATA work fine. A Live Session boot can fail for idiot reasons, like a USB3 store in a USB3 port switches to USB3 protocol (of course) and the boot fails.

From a working Live Mint you can determine...

o Does Mint Linux have a driver for the 32GB store? If a Live Session Mint gparted can't see it and format it, you are not in a position to install there at all.

o Does GRUB have a driver for the 32GB store? You won't find out until the end of the installation. If not, you need to do a 'Something Else' install and include a separate boot partition on a drive that GRUB can use.

[pauloz]

I appreciate the response but again I’m confronted with a blank screen when attempting to boot from (this time) DVD. I found the following information on another website:

"In order for the system to recognise the installed OS, you must ensure the system is using UEFI boot mode as well as enabling Firmware TPM BEFORE installation. Secure boot MUST be off for installation and after installation. Legacy Option ROM should be disabled. After install, the system will recognise the OS and boot properly after the TPM check which will only occur at the very first bootup and never occur again."

1. I could not locate Legacy Option ROM in my settings but found “Legacy USB Support”, which I have disabled.
2. In my Advanced settings, I have an option “Platform Trust Technology” that has a sub-heading “TPM Configuration”. From that the only option is “fTPM” (presuming the “f” stands for Firmware), but this was already enabled.
3. These are the settings displaying in my Boot tab:

Setup Prompt Timeout = 3
Bootup Numlock State = Off
Quiet Boot = enabled

Boot Option #1 = [UEFI: Sony DVD RW etc] (has LM 18.3 Cinnamon burned on to)
Boot Option #2 = [Windows Boot Manager]
Boot Option #3 = [UEFI: Built-in EFI Shell]

New Boot Option Policy = [Place First]

From the options displayed, I can only assume the system is using UEFI boot mode.

In the Security tab, these are the settings displayed:

System Mode = Deployed
Secure Boot = Not Active
Vendor Keys = Not Active

Attempt Secure Boot = [Disabled]
Secure Boot Mode = [Standard]

There is another tab in my settings (Chipset) that has 4 options, namely “North Bridge”, “South Bridge”, “Uncore Configuration” and “South Cluster Configuration”. I’ve never seen this terminology before and I can only assume this may have something to do with the eMMC drive.

I would appreciate further assistance from anybody thanks.

[pauloz]

Here is further info for anybody who may be able to help. The attachment displays my existing disk management in Windows.

You will notice the Recovery and EFI System partitions are still on the eMMC drive (Disk 1) and Windows 10 is installed on the SSD (Disk 0). The Recovery and EFI System partitions can not be moved from the eMMC drive and I want to install LM Cinnamon on the Unallocated partition of the eMMC drive. Appreciate any help.

Disk Management snapshot.PNG

[pauloz]

Judging by the lack of response, I'm guessing installing Cinnamon this way is a no go. Oh well, can't win 'em all...

[Mute Ant]

"I tried a live USB stick but all I got was a blank screen" Fix that first... really. You don't have any problems with Mint (yet) if the Live Session medium can't start a Linux.

[Pierre]

the speed of your budget laptop won't be that flash,
and so you could have an issue in running the Cinnamon version of LinuxMint.

so, try downloading the Mate version of LinuxMint and boot that from your usb stick,
- it would be very helpful, if the Manufacturer & Model of the Video Card was known, as well.
post back with how you go, this time, around.

[pauloz]

Respectfully Mute Ant, you have twice told me to "fix that first". What I would like to know is HOW to fix that first, that's why I'm posting.
Pierre, I'm beginning to think not being able to budge the Recovery and EFI System partitions in the eMMC drive (see Disk Management snapshot) is the cause of not being able to boot from live USB or DVD. BIOS recognised my live DVD of Cinnamon previously - I changed the boot order but no dice. Being lighter on resources, I tried Linux Lite but in this case BIOS did not even recognise the live DVD. I'll give Mate a go but I won't hold my breath.
I'm curious why you want my video card details? It's the (presumably) standard Intel HD Graphics and according to the DirectX Diagnostic Tool in Windows 10, is working fine.

[SprinterDriver]

I'll bet you have got one of those cheap laptops that have a locked-down EFI (can't remember the excact term right now) and simply put: You can't boot anything else other than Windows on that computer. Afaik that also means the computer won't let you boot live-cd linux neither.

But then again, it is dependent on what brand and model name the computer is. On most computers you should be able to unlock EFI, but not all.

[pauloz]

Attn: Pierre

I tried booting with LM Mate (from live DVD) as you suggested and again it failed to boot. Unlike Linux Lite, it did display in the boot tab of BIOS, changed the order as per normal but alas, another blank screen.

I'm afraid SprinterDriver's comments are pretty close to the mark.

Thanks for your suggestions.

[pauloz]

I have done some research and it looks like LM 18.3 does not have UEFI support? Will I have to wait until LM 19.0 which being based on Ubuntu 18.04, does have UEFI support? I say that because I successfully booted Xubuntu 18.04 to my laptop but stopped installing because of the following message:

"The installer has detected that the following disks have mounted partitions
/dev/mmcblk3, /dev/sda
Do you want the installer to try to unmount the partitions on these disks before continuing? If you leave them mounted, you will not be able to create, delete, or resize partitions on these disks, but you may be able to install to existing partitions there."

If you check out the screenshot, these partitions won't budge and I'm pretty sure the installer won't be able to unmount them. What are my chances about successfully installing to existing partitions as the message states? I'm not keen on Xubuntu and would prefer to install LM 19.0 (either XFCE or Mate, Cinnamon may struggle) provided UEFI is supported. My very stubborn Ollee laptop has the Aptio Setup Utility, which is apparently a variant of the BIOS setup utility. For me, it poses problems owing to its different layout and I don't have the confidence to proceed. My major concern is I could be locked out trying to boot into Windows. Windows is a necessary evil because there are two apps I need that won't run well in Linux despite WINE and other emulations. Thanks.

[Pierre]

well - several months back, I'd bought a Lenovo 100s that is similar to what you've got
( coz Lenovo's are my new Fad PCs )
and it's my New Win-10 PlayToy - - so I'm never gonna convert it to Linux

anyway,, I've just scored yet another Ex Vista Laptop & it's not much of a guess, just what Linux System was installed onto it.

[pauloz]

Update:

I took a leap of faith and decided to install Xubuntu 18.04 to my eMMC drive. Naturally, I would have preferred to install LM but, whilst recognised in the BIOS settings, it failed to boot. After being informed that Xubuntu had UEFI support, I tested it out. Maybe LM 19 will be UEFI supported? Have to wait and see.

Strangely, I never received any warning message this time that the installation detected mounted partitions and instead went to the options to install alongside Windows 10 etc. I opted "Something Else" and was able to create a partition in my eMMC drive - I did not bother with a swap partition. After that, it was all plain sailing and I now have my laptop set up the way I want and apart from sometimes freezing up when I suspend manually, it's running well.

However, it's still my intention to try out LM 19 when released. Some are suggesting I may have problems with Cinnamon but XFCE should be OK. I wanted to try Linux Lite 4.0 but it also does not have UEFI support. I won't mark as "Solved" until I try out LM 19.

[Pierre]

at least you got Xubuntu working on it,,
- - yep, it's true that the various Linux systems can give you different results.

and IMHO running Cinnamon would be too heavy as these machine have a slower CPU in them.
& I'd have thought that you would have needed to keep that EFI partition, in order to boot the machine,
as that was the way in which it was designed.