During installation the installer failed

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Excellent work so far.

However, during installation, the installer failed every time (3x on the K55A, 1x on the X555UA) when using automatic partitioning. My solution was to go with manual partitioning, creating a 300 MB FAT32 partition for (/boot/EFI) and another for the root (/).

I am not certain as to why this is, but I suspect it may be unique to ASUS laptops.

Experienced Linux users will eventually figure out this part on their own if they are willing to be persistent and not too worried about casualties on the SSD.

Inexperienced Linux (Windows/macOS) users will be heading towards giving up unless they are given step-by-step instructions for manual partitioning using the KDE Partition Manager. Perhaps a section on manual partitioning requirements in the tips? With a link to how to use the KDE Partition Manager on the KDE website (https://docs.kde.org/stable5/en/partitionmanager/partitionmanager/partitionmanager.pdf)?

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What to do if there is a problem installing OMLx

Tips for manual partitioning with Calamares installer

Those are here:

Resources Index

It may be more to the point to investigate why automatic partitioning failed for you. This is something plenty of users and us testers use regularly.

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Both laptops are no longer running factory supplied hard drives. Those were replaced several years ago. Based on my limited experience, using a SSD with hardware designed for a hard drive should not make any difference. Both originally had Windows. My impression is once you delete the current partition table and create a new one, Windows is gone. Since wiping out Windows on both, Kubuntu, Fedora, Pop_OS, Mint Cinnamon, a few other distros, and openSUSE Tumbleweed were on one at assorted different times, Kubuntu on the other.

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I do not understand your point? I am missing something?

Edit: I have replaced hd’s with ssd’s myself and it never presented any problem. For operating systems I did fresh installs. For data I copied from old hd to flash drive and cp’d that to the new ssd. But I do not use Windows so that is not a factor for me.

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I am just telling you what I did to the hardware, not sure if it meant anything. I no longer use Windows. Back when I was working, I did. Now that I am no longer working and Windows died on one and was almost dead on the other, I deleted Windows and started over. I doubt any of these changes made any difference. But I learned an old saying: “Never say never. Just when you believe it can never happen, it does.”

I am not looking for why I had to do a manual partition. Back when I used Windows, it seems manual partitioning was the rule, not the exception. At least for myself.

Perhaps I started going down a rabbit hole that isn’t worth an investment of time. My original points were to relay what I did to get everything working, and I am led to believe that the overwhelming majority of Windows/macOS users coming here probably will need additional detailed documentation when things go sideways because most of them are quick to jump to conclusions unless detailed step-by-step instructions are provided.

Stamping out “Linux sucks” is always a worthy goal, in my opinion.

Now, regarding “Linux sucks.”

Yesterday afternoon I encountered an “IT expert” who I listened to for half an hour explaining why Linux sucks because he couldn’t get the distro installed, followed by why Linux sucks because it doesn’t work on current hardware and doesn’t work with software XYZ. So I showed him on the software website that yes, software XYZ does run on Linux, so long as the user has Java (yuck) installed. But then, Windows and macOS have the same requirement. I came away concluding that he was a Linus Tech Tips type of individual who really didn’t try to bother to learn first, didn’t watch a few YouTube videos on the subject of how to install Linux and applications, or didn’t go digging around the Internet web pages for those answers as I did a few years ago (ex: what is grep?). And yes, I offered to install Linux for no charge for my time if he was willing to stick around and watch how I do it.

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Edit: This is sort of a thinking out loud post…

I can not write a how to for users that want to dual boot OMLx and Windows, or those that ditch Windows, because I do not have Windows. I keep asking for someone to write this. I guess I am saying that I can’t write from the perspective of a Windows user and that is what this needs.

I would agree we need better explanation of this specifically oriented to users coming from Windows. But it really needs to be someone that knows and uses Windows that writes this. If someone wants to write something here in forum you create a topic I suppose in Other forum category and I and others can review. What we ideally want is for a few users with Windows to test what is the Guide article. I think this would be a positive for OpenMandriva Lx.

Edit: Writing a general guide to partitioning that goes beyond the article in Resources Index is very difficult because there are so many variables in how users do this. So maybe ultimately we need a “Guide to Partitioning in OMLx installer” with a section for Windows users. Anyway maybe we collectively can get something started on this.

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I have not run Windows since I retired in 2021 and don’t have it running on this PC. I can’t do this either.

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There is this:

Calamares Users Guide

It should be possible to take that and write and Installation Guide for OMLx Calamares Installer.

We also could use a Preinstall User Guide that covers ISO selection, downloading installation image, and copying that image to USB flash drive. And whatever else users might suggest. For instance for dual booting with Windows most users would need to shrink a Windows partition to have space for an OMLx system. And many Windows users might want to use their ntfs storage partiton in OMLx as well.

OMLx is a Community distribution of Linux. This means if something needs to be done someone in the Community will have to do it. And this is one where I can participate but I can not do this myself.

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I seem to recall that both Mint and Ubuntu had the option to shrink the Windows partition for the first time Linux user. No idea how they made this happen. I am definitely not a programmer and wouldn’t know where to start. I knew enough to go into Windows first, shrink the partition, and then start installing Kubuntu.

However, this doesn’t eliminate the major pain of Windows destroying the ability to boot back into Linux every time Windows does a Microsoft-forced update. The ultimate way around this is, as WilsonPhillips recommended, installing a second drive if space permits and go into the UEFI at POST to choose which OS. But some of us can’t do that with our antique laptops (wish I could). One more reason why I am glad I hosed off Windows ASAP.

My experience with using NTFS drives with Linux shows that while it can be done once the user is familiar with editing the /etc/fstab file.

I think I just dug a deeper hole.

Back in the last half of 2020 to early 2021 when I was checking out Linux, I learned how to deal with NTFS the hard way. Searching the Internet for web pages that explained fstab and how to configure it for NTFS. Once I was committed to Linux, goodbye NTFS partitions. Because every external drive was a primary and backup, I reformatted them to ext4 and copied the data to the new format. Then I cleaned up the fstab file by deleting the NTFS entries. For storage over a long time frame, I don’t trust FAT32.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel for NTFS and fstab. Just point the user to an existing web page that documents how to configure the fstab file for NTFS. One big advantage OM has in my opinion is Kate, an easy-to-use editor when compared to VIM’s lack of a GUI.

For Windows users for the short term or for non-critical data, if they want to swap back and forth between Windows and Linux with the same data storage partition or drive, my advice is to reformat to FAT32 and let Dolphin deal with it, as this is the easiest way if they don’t want to get their fingers dirty inside fstab. I know how most Windows users don’t want to learn anything that even remotely looks like programming.

However, if not swapping between operating systems, a reformat to ext4 or other Linux supported format is the best bet.

Just me rambling about what I did when starting with Linux four years ago. Don’t take me too seriously. My computer education is somewhere between zero and nonexistent.

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I’m old enough to remember “wubi”…it basically made an image file for Ubuntu inside of your NTFS drive and let you boot to it…I know they quit doing it, I think the switch to UEFI and secure boot is what did it in.

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