I am looking into geting a Acer Aspire Switch 11 SW5-171-39LB and I wanted to know if any one has tried to install ubuntu on it in as a dual boot. I found one review on it that implied that you needed to pach the Kernel to get the keybord to work. This is a little out of my abilty, and I dont want to get one if it just plain can not work. If I have to use Windows I prefer Windows7 any way, and I can get help if need be. I mean it is one thing to mess with different Distro on a 10 year old laptop and I really don't want to be stuck with out Ubuntu only Win8. I don't expect 100% compatability out of the box, I am just afraid of getting in over my head with it.all. I use email as my online communication I have a hard time digging up answers but the times I have asked questions with ubuntu and I find very gracious people that are willing to help. Thank you
3 Answers
Not sure if you found your answer yet but I have ubuntu running dual booted with Win 8.1 (yuck). Yes you do need a kernel patch but it's simple to apply. Until then you need a USB keyboard when running Linux. Another thing you'll have to do is resize your main windows partition BEFORE trying to install Linux. Make sure you leave about 20gb free for Windows. You'll need it if you ever try to upgrade to windows 10.
Linux works with UEFI but the only way to turn off Secure boot and leave UEFI enabled is if you set a BIOS password. Don't forget it as you need to send the system to acer to remove it. There's other ways in bit you can't clear the password yourself. I've tried. Lol
I don't have the link for the kernel patch handy but the link to it is in the discussion section of the article you read. It was on Lilliputing I believe. It's down a bit.
Hope this helps
The latest Linux Mint release works out of the box on the switch SW5-171.
No kernel patch needed however there is an issue with the the touchscreen failing to work after a power resume. To fix this explicitly suspend the touchscreen module:
echo "SUSPEND_MODULES=\"hid_multitouch\"" > /etc/pm/config.d/modules
The latest Ubuntu release (18.04) works out of the box on the switch SW5-171. Everything works: touchscreen, keyboard, touchpad, wifi, bluetooth, suspend, speakers, headphones, SD card, both USB ports, HDMI output.
Secure boot needs to be disabled with a supervisor password, as mentioned in other answers as well. There was no need to re-enable secure boot to make grub work (as mentioned on other sites), I could just make the HDD (initially it even labeled it as Linux, I think) the first boot device to boot grub by default.
My Switch had Windows 10 pre-installed (it is a refurbished one). I let Windows resize its own partition, leaving 30G unallocated space and then Ubuntu automatically installed itself into the empty space alongside Windows (I used a minimal install, since 30G is apparently not a lot these days).
One issue remains: When suspending, the touchscreen stops working. The SUSPEND_MODULES workaround posted by others does not work on Ubuntu 18.04, I suspect since suspend is handled by systemd now. A similar workaround could be made using systemd hook scripts, however it turns out that this bug is fixed in the kernel (first in 4.19-rc4) and will be backported to Ubuntu 18.04 (it is in proposed updates now). There is an Ubuntu bug report about this with more details: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1796580
