Tutorial - Install Linux Mint 20 on Acer Swift 3 notebook

[dimic]

Install Linux Mint 20 on Acer Swift 3

1. Model SF314-57-55BK (2020)

Hardware
Model: SF314-57-55BK
CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-1035G1 Prozessor (Quad-Core)
Graphics: Intel UHD G1
Sound: Intel Multimedia audio controller
Display: 14 inch IPS FHD
RAM: 8 GB
Disk: 512 GB SSD (M.2 PCIe Solid-State-Drive (SSD))

Known problems

• internal microphone not working (driver problem in kernel 5.4) https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=201251

• fingerprint sensor not working (missing driver in kernel 5.4)

• internal speakers require workaround (see below)

BIOS settings
Main => D2D-Recovery: Disabled
Main => Fast Boot: Disabled
Main => SATA Mode: AHCI [Press CTRL+S to see this menue entry]
Security => Set Supervisor Password: set a password
Security => Change TPM (TCM) State: Disabled
Boot => Boot Mode: UEFI
Boot => Secure Boot: Disabled

Installation
See https://linuxmint.com/documentation.php
Overview:

• Download Linux Mint 20 ISO

• Verify your ISO! https://linuxmint.com/verify.php

• Create bootable USB stick with Mint Stick tool

• Boot from USB stick

• Start GParted from Mint menue and create partitions

• Start Mint Setup (icon "Install Linux Mint" on desktop)

Partitions
For a single boot installation on a laptop with 8 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD i suggest the following partitions:
1 nvme0n1p1 EFI FAT32 100 MB /boot/efi
2 nvme0n1p2 Swap swap 4 GB ---
3 nvme0n1p3 Mint ext4 50 GB /
4 nvme0n1p4 Home ext4 400 GB /home

OS configuration
# disable storage of access time for root partition (minimize write access on SSD)
# add flag 'noatime' to entry of root partition in /etc/fstab:
UUID=dac3d24a-fc61-40df-b0b6-3e5a61410fab / ext4 noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1

# use RAM disk for /tmp file system (minimize write access on SSD)
# add this entry to /etc/fstab:
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,size=10%,mode=1777 0 0

# workaround to get audio (internal speakers) working
# add this line to file /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf:
options snd-intel-dspcfg dsp_driver=1

# if windows of QT4 apps appear too small on your FHD/UHD display
# add this line to file ~/.profile:
export QT_SCALE_FACTOR=1.3

# if you want to use Samba servers/NAS servers with Samba version 1 (like older WiFi rooters)
# add this line to file /etc/samba/smb.conf in section [global] after workgroup definition:
client min protocol = NT1

Cinnamon settings
If fonts and icons appear too small on your FHD/UHD display:
1. set scaling factor to 1.3 in system settings/fonts
2. adjust height of pannel (right click on Cinnamon pannel->pannel settings)
3. open Nemo file manager and adjust icon size with slider
4. adjust icon size and grid size in desktop settings (right mouse click on desktop)

2. Model SF314-56-53MU (2019)

Hardware
Model: SF314-56-53MU
CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-8265U Prozessor (Quad-Core)
Graphics: Intel UHD 620
Sound: Intel Multimedia audio controller
Display: 14 inch IPS FHD
RAM: 8 GB
Disk: 512 GB SSD (M.2 PCIe Solid-State-Drive)

This model has got the advantage that internal audio and microphones work without problems with LM20/Kernel 5.4.0.

BIOS settings, Installation, Partitions, Cinnamon settings: see above

OS configuration: see above, workaround for audio not required

Enjoy your Swift 3 notebook with Linux Mint!

[strikemaster]

Hi and thanks so much for all this helpful info.... much appreciated your time to do this.
I have this same Acer laptop, and tried Cinnamon 19.3 on a stick live. I had no touchpad, no micrphone and no wireless for internet. So my question would be; If I installed Cinnamon 19.3... how could I get internet to download a suitable Kernel if I cant have a plug-in source of internet? All I have is wireless Dongle that I use for 2 years now which gets internet even before boot is reached the desktop with Mint XFCE... so why the problem with Cinnamon? This same Cinnamon works flawlessly on a stick on a 10 year old Gigabte laptop with only 4gb ram... but seems to have problems with this Acer. And FYI... I want Cinnamon 19.3 because a mate has same and braggs how good it is, so I want it also.
I will now go and complete as many tasks you list above in BIOS etc and see if that helps.

[SMG]

I have this same Acer laptop, and tried Cinnamon 19.3 on a stick live. I had no touchpad, no micrphone and no wireless for internet.

I would recommend you use a version of LM20 on your Acer. It has a 10th-gen Intel CPU and you are more likely to be able to get the drivers for it by using the newer kernels available in LM20. This tutorial was written a year ago when the newer kernels were not yet available.

You can test a newer kernel by using this ISO Linux Mint 20.2 "Uma" - Cinnamon (Edge, 64-bit) which has the 5.11 kernel.

[packetracket]

May 2022 update
A web search for "Linux Mint Acer Swift 3" very usefully lands on this tutorial.

Having purchased a newer edition, I'm posting this update for those that may land here with the 2022 version of this product and trying to get a working system as a Linux Mint standalone machine.

System Info - May 2022 Version
Model:SF314-512-52MZ (manufacturer date 2022/3/24)
Processor: Intel Evo Platform Powered by 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-1240P (12-core) Processor
Wireless: KILLER™ AX1675 (2x2/160) Wi-Fi 6E Gig+ and Bluetooth® 5.2
Display: 14" Widescreen IPS LED-backlit FHD (1920 x 1080)
16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD

Not Tested
fingerprint scanner
internal speakers / microphones

BIOS Settings
Follow BIOS settings as in original tutorial above. To get into BIOS on this machine was a "esc-f2-del" hold down simultaneously at boot. Also note that the step "set bios password" is required to change/alter most of the settings, particularly secure boot so you will need to set this password, then boot again into bios to continue.

Installation
As of this date, download the "Edge" Edition of Linux Mint 20.3. This is shipping with the Linux 5.13 kernel which is closer to the minimum needed for this machine (more on that later).
I recommend to follow the installation instructions above, setting the partitions to similar values

Post Installation - Get Wifi Working
To complete this step you will need to find an older USB wifi NIC or a wired USB NIC. The internal "killer" wifi wasn't working for me straight away. Using your workaround for a network connection, you can directly install this deb package and your internal wifi will be working (very well as far as I can tell).
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/p ... u4_all.deb

Post Installation - Fix Video Driver popup warning "no hardware acceleration"
To fix the video driver issues, I did the following
-upgraded to kernel 5.15
-ran update manager and installed all package updates

Tha's It
Thanks to the original poster and follow up comments suggesting edge edition for this tutorial,
This inxi output below shows the version of glx and mesa that is working "direct render = yes" along with all other details.
There may be some debate as to which kernel is best, to which I will say I attempted 5.13 and newer 5.17 and found 5.15 to be working best in combination with above. I expect that all (5.1x) options may work in the near future as above issues were relatively minor (wifi and video driver related only). As such this system should be reasonably well positioned for upgrade to Linux Mint 21, when released, assuming it will be released with the same or newer kernel than the current edge edition.

Final Result
output of inxi -Fxxxzr

Code: Select all

System:    Kernel: 5.15.0-32-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A Desktop: Cinnamon 5.2.7 wm: muffin 5.2.1 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 
           Distro: Linux Mint 20.3 Una base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Acer product: Swift SF314-512 v: V1.03 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: ADL model: Shark_ADP v: V1.03 serial: <filter> UEFI: Insyde v: 1.03 date: 03/02/2022 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 52.6 Wh condition: 54.3/54.3 Wh (100%) volts: 13.3/11.6 model: LGC AP19B8M type: Li-ion 
           serial: <filter> status: Charging 
           Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse MX Master serial: <filter> charge: 55% (should be ignored) 
           rechargeable: yes status: Discharging 
           Device-2: hidpp_battery_1 model: Logitech K350 serial: <filter> charge: 70% (should be ignored) rechargeable: yes 
           status: Discharging 
CPU:       Topology: 8-Core model: 12th Gen Intel Core i5-1240P bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: N/A L2 cache: 12.0 MiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 67584 
           Speed: 435 MHz min/max: 400/4400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 431 2: 1033 3: 963 4: 400 5: 400 6: 400 7: 400 8: 400 
           9: 433 10: 442 11: 442 12: 434 13: 442 14: 419 15: 400 16: 400 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 0000:00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:46a6 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.13 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz, 1920x1080~60Hz, 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel Graphics (ADL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.2.6 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: N/A bus ID: 0000:00:05.0 chip ID: 8086:465d 
           Device-2: Intel vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl bus ID: 0000:00:1f.3 
           chip ID: 8086:51c8 
           Device-3: Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo bus ID: 3-4.2:5 chip ID: 046d:0809 
           serial: <filter> 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.15.0-32-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Intel vendor: Bigfoot Networks driver: iwlwifi v: iwlwifi-stack-public:master:9858:4c7cba27 port: 3000 
           bus ID: 0000:00:14.3 chip ID: 8086:51f0 
           IF: wlp0s20f3 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 41.38 GiB (8.7%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: SK Hynix model: HFM512GD3JX016N size: 476.94 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 
           serial: <filter> rev: 41020C20 scheme: GPT 
RAID:      Hardware-1: Intel Volume Management Device NVMe RAID Controller driver: vmd v: 0.6 port: 3000 bus ID: 0000:00:0e.0 
           chip ID: 8086.467f rev: N/A 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 57.42 GiB used: 7.98 GiB (13.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 
           ID-2: /home size: 395.30 GiB used: 33.40 GiB (8.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p4 
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 15.62 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 32.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/canonical-kernel-team-proposed-focal.list 
           1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/canonical-kernel-team/proposed/ubuntu focal main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
           1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com una main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
           2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
           3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
           4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
           5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
           6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
Info:      Processes: 342 Uptime: 8m Memory: 15.34 GiB used: 1.46 GiB (9.5%) Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: 
           gcc: 9.4.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash v: 5.0.17 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.38  

[SMG]

Moderator note: Dony66's questions can now be found here Need help Installing Linux Mint on Acer Swift 3 14-515582 2016 because they are wanting to install Linux Mint 21 on a slightly older Acer laptop.