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After my recent escapades I bought a new (to me) laptop. Basically a more together version of the one I had (HP 15 notebook). As it came with Win10 I thought it would be useful to keep this available & so went for a dual boot option with Ubuntu 20.04.

I negotiated making a bootable USB stick. I changed the BIOS to boot 1st from CD/USB then inserted the media & followed the instructions.
I was prompted to make a 'one time password' to configure secure boot. I allocated 1/2 the 1Tb hard drive to Ubuntu. checked install updates & 3rd party software option. All was going well.

When prompted to restart at the end I was unsure when to remove the USB stick & didn't want to restart with it in place as it would boot to that, so I closed that dialogue box intending to power off as normal, remove the stick & power up as usual. There was some short message I didn't understand on a blackscreen, I could hear stuff going on & a normal GUI displayed. I chose to power off. There was a dialogue box saying to remove the media & press enter, which I did.

On power up it booted to Win10. I powered off & f9'd on power on & selected Ubuntu & this booted but I was not asked to enter the 'one time password' at any point (nor have I since).

Carried out checks to make sure 3rd party software stuff was active (pretty sure it is) & made sure I updated everything via terminal. Then accessed the BIOS to turn off secure boot hoping that would sort out the boot order & give the option of which OS to boot on start up (which is what I was expecting). It booted to Win10. Retried a few times & always boots to Win10 as default. Did some searches to find a solution.

I installed Grub-customizer which allegedly allows me to do this in the 'general settings-default entry-predefined' dropdown menu. I set this to Ubuntu, saved, restarted - & got Win10 again. Doubled check everything & Grub Customizer has Ubuntu as default/1st entry but if I restart or power off it still boots to Win10, directly without any option to change. If I want Ubuntu I have to f9 to get it.

Ideally I'd like to get the option of which OS to choose when I power on, which is what I was expecting. I'd settle for default boot of Ubuntu & f9 to get Win10. What I don't want is what I've got.

I don't know where to go from here. Please help.

Follow my recent escapades & while still have my 'computer head' on I thought I'd try & check the heath & age of my HDD. Searching I came across Smartmontools command but this had to be installed.

Followed the instruction : $ sudo apt install smartmontools

At the end of the install I had these err, messages:
Err:6 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 libmysqlclient20 amd64 5.7.34-0ubuntu0.18.04.1
  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.142 80]
Get:9 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 mailutils amd64 1:3.4-1 [140 kB]
Get:10 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 smartmontools amd64 6.5+svn4324-1ubuntu0.1 [477 kB]
Fetched 2,923 kB in 1s (3,736 kB/s)     
E: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/m/mysql-5.7/libmysqlclient20_5.7.34-0ubuntu0.18.04.1_amd64.deb  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.142 80]
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?

I ran 'apt-update' then tried --fix-missing.   Update updated stuff, 'fix-missing' wasn't recognised.
More searching got me short tutorial on fixing broken/missing packages. did this :

:~$ sudo apt-get update --fix-missing
Hit:1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Hit:2 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease             
Hit:3 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease           
Hit:4 http://ppa.launchpad.net/micahflee/ppa/ubuntu bionic InRelease           
Hit:5 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease             
Reading package lists... Done   

then:
$ sudo apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 10 not to upgrade.

Then I was allegedly read to go so did this (with results):
$ mount | grep 'on / type'
/dev/sda2 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered)
$ sudo smartctl --xall /dev/sda2
sudo: smartctl: command not found

so followed instructions to get rid of any broken/incomplete packages :
$ sudo apt-get update
Hit:1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Hit:2 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease             
Hit:3 http://ppa.launchpad.net/micahflee/ppa/ubuntu bionic InRelease           
Hit:4 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease           
Hit:5 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease             
Reading package lists... Done       
$ sudo apt-get clean
$ sudo apt-get autoremove
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 10 not to upgrade.

& finally my question - am I ready to have another go at installing Smartmontools ?

Just had my 5th crash in 2 hrs. Mouse cursor freezes nothing works  - cont/alt/del does nothing neither does esc. I switch off with the power button & reboot.

18.04 has been a bit crashy since I installed it but it has been getting better, usually goes once after an update then is fine. Was behaving a little oddly the last couple of days, eg. FB spell check doing odd things so I updated yesterday. Didn't cure anything but this evening it's been crashing roughly every 20-30min no matter what it is I'm doing (on internet).

Anyone any suggestions as to how I proceed ? things I can check ? I'll be off to bed shortly so not in a rush. Perhaps it'll improve next time I use it.

Here I am again folks. I'm running Ubuntu 18.04. Laptop is:

HP 15 notebook pc mod no 2213
kernel;    4.40-185generic x86_64   (64bit   gcc; 5.4.0)     console;  tty 1    distro ;  [nothing here]
bios; Insyde   v;F.39
Quad core intel pentium n3540   cache;1024 kb      flags; (-)     bmips; 4326
network;  card-1; realtek rtl8188ee wireless network adapter    driver; rtl8188ee     IF; wlp2so       state; up       speed;  n/a      duplex;  n/a
                mac;   9c;ad;97;36;21;a7       
                card-2; realtek rtl810ex pci express fast ethernet controller    IF;  p3p1    state; down     mac; 38;63;bb;84;74;7a
drives;   HDD; 500 gb (18.2% used)  ID-1; /dev/sda
partition;  id-1; / size; 451G   used; 78gb  (19% used)    fs; ext4      dev;  /dev/sda1
                id-2;  swap-1     size  8.47gb     used 0.00gb       fs; swap       dev;   /dev/sda5
raid;  no raid devices;  /proc/mdstat,  md_mod kernel module present
sensors;  none detected - lm-sensors installed and configured?
Info;   processes; -1    uptime; 5 min   memory; 144.2/7875.5MB   Init;  systemd    Gcc sys; 5.4.0    Client;  shell (bash)  inxi; 2.2.35





Updated it yesterday evening. worked OK on booting this morning but gave the usual crash after about an hr. Has done this most times after an update but has been Ok for a couple of months now. Worked fine after hard shutdown & reboot. Came to use it again about an hr ago & found it wasn't wanting to rename any files so I went for a restart & it hung up on a plain purple screen. CTRL/ALT/DEL gives the following :

/dev/sda2 contains files system with errors, check forced
Inodes that were part of a corrupted orphan linked list were found.

/dev/sda2: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.

fsck exited with status  code 4
the root file system on /dev/sda2 requires a manual fsck


Am I screwed again?

Just installed Ubuntu (18) having run LinuxLite prev. Not doing badly with the default desktop, but would like to have a look at "classic view". So how do I swap ? TIA.

Hi again,

This relates to my other thread about my LinuxLite OS corrupting & only being able to get to command line on boot. I'm going to have to install a new OS.
I'm starting a new thread because it's a specific question about browser 'bookmark' back ups. (NB I'm writing this on my spare/backup laptop.)

I've been able to back up my home directory files and am about ready to install Ubuntu 18 but I can't find out how to backup my Firefox "bookmarks" or indeed find where they might be on the drive (if at all).  I've looked on-line but all I can find is how to migrate them or back them up from the browser itself &, of course, can't do that because I can't launch the browser as I can't boot to the GUI.

As I'll be using the same hardware will Firefox still recognize that laptop as the same one & still show all my old 'bookmarks' ? Or will having a new OS prevent that?
If the latter am just going to have suck-it-up as a lost cause?

Finally - will I be in a similar position regarding YouTube notifications / followed channels etc. ?

My main Linux Lite laptop has gone T--sup & I'm in need of a live USB to retrieve my home folder files & replace the OS (With ubuntu). Trying to follow an LL tutorial to create one has already run into problems just trying download an app to write to USB. (my backup laptop - the one I'm using now - is also LL.)
I struggle with this sort of thing when everything goes as it should.

I'm looking at the plethora of ready done live USB's on ebay for less than £10. I know Ubuntu/linux is a free OS but this would, at first sight, be a hassle free way to get what I need fairly quickly.

Has anyone else used one? or know of a better (ie trusted) source than ebay ?

I'm currently using Linux lite but getting help if something goes wrong is getting problematic. If I come here or anywhere else there's generally a lot of head scratching. So I'm thinking of trying something else & would like some suggestions please. I would like something that I will able to get help with easily if needed but doesn't need to be all sing/dancing. most use would be internet. Least technical to use would be a help too. TIA.

Help !

Problem laptop is HP 15 notebook quad core. OS is linux lite 3.4 which is Ubuntu based.  I've asked this on Linux lite forum but no reply so far & I'm anxious to sort this & get to my files (I'm on my old emergency backup laptop here.)

what happened/s:

Ran updates Ok a couple of days ago. needed to reboot for some to take effect. It rebooted through 'safe' mode &then wouldn't connect to my wifi so shut down & logged back on all OK. Been on standby when not in use for last couple of days. Accidentally pressed on/off button tonight briefly & went into standby - I think. Pressed start button again to get back in & it shut down. now reboots to 'safe' (selects LL by default if left 30 secs.) I get the feather (splash screen?) but his takes longer than normal to clear. then goes to command line login request. Accepts this OK with password & goes to command line $ after some messages inc:

usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/ release-upgrade-motd: 39: usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/release-upgrade-motd: cannot create /var/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/release upgrade available: read-only file system
usr/lib/update-notifier/update-motd-fsck-at-reboot: 33: usr/lib/update-notifier/update-motd-fsck-at-reboot: cannot create /var/lib/update-notifier/fsck-at-reboot: read-only file system
cat: /var/lib/update-notifier/fsck-at-reboot: no such file or directory
run-parts: /etc/update-motd.d/98-fsck-at-reboot exited with return code 1

It has booted normally once since & stupidly I thought that if is shut down properly from there things might be OK but, no, only command line since then.

What do I do now ?

Sorry to bring this up here but I'm not sure where else to go & not getting much response at the LLforum. I'm running LinuxLight 3.4distro.
I installed WINE using the synaptic manager but once in I couldn't tell what release it was as it didn't match anything I could find at WineHQ. So I removed it & re-installed following the WineHQ instructions here:
https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu
I used the Ubuntu 19.04 repository install. It seems to have gone in OK & shows up as ver.4.0.1 but I'm now worried if I've got the right one for my OS. I'm not that experienced at this sort of thing as you might be able to tell so I'll need walking through any changes I'll need to do. Any assistance much appreciated.

As i say elsewhere my peppermint Dell died yesterday. Hard drive on it is a simple slot in affair. I've an external HDD case that will allow a hard drive to be accessed via USB port. I've tried this but my Win 10 laptop doesn't want to acknowledge is existance. Blurb on the extenal case says it support Win to XP but no mention of any Linux. Qustions:
Can i run a linux o/s booted from an extenal hard drive on my remaining (win 10) laptop?
Can i run from my (external) Dell hard drive which has peppermint already installed? Do i need a different external case that supports linux to access the Dell hard drive?
Should i just give up entirely & live in a cave?

Hi again,
I've just been trying to find how to install a dual boot (pep7 & Win10) on this (Toshiba) laptop, but have found references to using just a live USB instead. There is mention of running from a USB as being much slower than direct from an on-board hard drive. As I'm trying to improve speed (over win10) is the USB option a non starter? Anything else I should be aware of ? (I've tried searching the site but obviously the terms I'm searching aren't the right ones.) Thanks.

Hi, I'm wanting to install Open Office. I've downloaded the right file package but can't get any furthur, the tutorial on the Apache website for installing onto Mint hasn't worked. Can you help?

Hi again, I put a post on the peppermint section 2 days ago & was informed it needed moderator approval? This isn't like any other forum I've been on where a post goes straight on. What is mean't by approval? and why is it still not approved 2 days later? I'm not having a bash I'm just confused.
...& now this post needs approval...

Hi everyone, newbie alert.
I've been spending some time here swotting up on Linux. I've decided to go with Peppermint 7 on my 'backup' laptop, a Dell D531 which currently has windows 7 . My question is : should I install the 32bit or 64bit ? Thanks in advance.