Problems with dual boot Acer Aspire One AO722 Netbook

aboutblank · 2016-11-17 07:46

I decided to install Q4OS Orion 1.8.1 (64 bit) on my AO722 Netbook to use in addition to Windows 7 Home Premium x64, which lumbers on this pc with a slow processor and only 2 Gb of RAM. The install went smoothly and the Netbook is much snappier under Q4OS, but I have run into a couple of issues that I hope someone is able to help me with..

I am running a dual boot machine, with the Windows bootloader installed in the Master Boot Record. Windows uses partitions sda1, sda2, and sda3, sda4 is 'not assigned' (I believe it contains the Extended Partition info), and sda5, sda6, and sda7 contain Q4OS. (Partition sda5 is the swap partition, sda6 is / [root], and sda7 is /home.) The Grub 2.0 boot loader is installed in sda6, and I have used EasyBCD (under Windows) to set up a boot menu, which works nicely. On booting, I see a Windows boot menu for Windows 7, Q4OS, and Macrium Reflect recovery environment. Selecting Q4OS takes me to the Grub 2.0 menu, and selecting the first choice (the default) boots to the Q4OS log in screen, without a problem

However, while suspend to ram works ok, hibernate does not. The laptop seems to shut down ok, but upon reboot, instead of immediately seeing the Q4OS log in screen, I go through a normal boot process, and note that there are 6 or 7 error messages regarding orphaned nodes (or 'inodes'?) that are being deleted. (Those messages are not displayed on a normal boot, so I presume that they have something to do with the hibernation file that is not being used, so is instead deleted.) When the desktop is finally displayed, all my open windows that should have been restored are gone, indicating that a normal boot has occurred, not a recovery from hibernation. Perhaps this will always occur unless the operating system (Grub boot loader, that is) is installed into the Master Boot Record? Or is there a way to make hibernation work correctly under my dual boot set up?

I ran into some other problems, but will relate those later. Any help with this hibernation problem will be appreciated.

Thanks!

aboutblank
November 17, 2016

Last edited by aboutblank (2016-11-17 07:49)

Dai_trying · 2016-11-18 08:08

I have to say I do not use hibernation and even in Windows (back in the day) I used to disable it as IMO it just wastes valuable disk space (although this might not be so relevant with modern hardware capacities) and I have read many issues people have with hibernation especially when dual/multi booting.
What I choose to do is simply shut down the machine, as this is a quick process and booting back up takes very little time too, so the benefits of hibernation (IMO) are becoming very slight. I know this doesn't even come close to an answer to your problem, but it's just what I do.

I am also thinking that hibernation is going to fail as the system restarts from the MBR which is controlled by another OS, which in this case (and most others) does not even see your hibernated Linux system, yet alone be able to wake it correctly, and when you finally get to your linux system via MBR(windows), EasyBCD(third-party) and then grub, it will just try to boot normally as this is the ususal behaviour. I believe for a hibernating system to work correctly it must be in control of the boot process, but I am definitely no expert as I said I usually disable it upon installation (if enabled) with all OS's.

The inodes being cleared would indicate that the shutdown process, or in this case hibernation, was not done properly and the orphaned inodes are cleared to give you a clean system.

So the short version is I think you are probably right that you would need grub in the MBR for hibernation to work as it should, but maybe someone else has had better luck with this type of issue and can give better advice.

aboutblank · 2016-11-19 07:45

Thanks, Dai_trying. Your explanation makes perfect sense to me, and I will use suspend to ram in the future, so long as I have Windows boot code installed in the MBR. Rebooting is indeed quite fast in Q4OS!

I agree that hibernation takes quite a bit of space on the hard drive. I rarely use it on my desktop, as it's on a UPS, so I just suspend to RAM, which is much faster than hibernation. On my laptop, I generally have the power plan set to put the unit to sleep (suspend to RAM) after a period of inactivity, or when I close the lid. After several more hours, the unit will hibernate. I like knowing that if I unplug the laptop, that it will hibernate prior to the battery running down. With Windows 7, I still find it faster to resume from hibernation than to power up after a complete shutdown, so I continue to use hibernation on the laptop. But that issue is not as important when booting into Q4OS.

Thanks!

aboutblank
November 19, 2016

q4osteam · 2016-11-19 09:49

We guess, the hibernation issues with Q4OS could be assumed as Debian based in general. You could safely follow common Debian guides and instructions, even a hardware specific, to solve them. If you will be able to find a fix for Debian, it will solve the issue for Q4OS very probably too.

aboutblank · 2016-11-19 10:33

Thanks, Q4OS Team.

I am embarrassed to say that I had gone through a similar problem on another laptop in December 2015, and solved the problem for that laptop, posting my solution on page 2 of the following forum link!:

http://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=53

I will try the solution on my current laptop, and see if it is still valid. Then, I will report back.

aboutblank
November 19, 2016

q4osteam · 2016-11-19 10:48

aboutblank wrote:

I will try the solution on my current laptop, and see if it is still valid. Then, I will report back.

Your valuable reporting is appreciated, thanks.

aboutblank · 2016-12-04 01:34

aboutblank wrote:

Thanks, Q4OS Team.
I am embarrassed to say that I had gone through a similar problem on another laptop in December 2015, and solved the problem for that laptop, posting my solution on page 2 of the following forum link!:
http://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=53
I will try the solution on my current laptop, and see if it is still valid. Then, I will report back.
aboutblank
November 19, 2016

Reporting back:

After much experimentation and testing, it appears that the instructions I posted in the above link are valid, so long as one uses the current location of one's actual swap partition, which in my case was sda5. Once I modified the referenced grub file (and ran update-grub in a terminal), I could successfully resume from Hibernation BUT ONLY IF KWIN WAS NOT RUNNING. With Kwin running, the resume would fail with a frozen black screen about 8 attempts in 10; that it worked on occasion gave me hope, but I ultimately concluded that the successes I had encountered were random and not reliable.

One change I made in the grub file was to have the following two lines in this order:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="resume=/dev/sda5"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet loglevel=3 TERM=dumb"

Originally, I had them in the reverse order (longer line first). I am not sure whether the order is significant, but I suspect not, as the critical factor was whether or not Kwin was running. But I'm mentioning it, just in case the order is significant.

I asked elsewhere, but will ask again here: does anyone know how to "unload" Kwin without logging out and logging back in?!

Also, has anyone successfully installed and run Compiz, and if so, did using it cause any untoward effects?

Once again, it is really too bad that Kwin causes problems with Q4OS. I am willing to put up with a few untoward effects for the sake of the graphical effects that it has, that make Q4OS a delight to use! But I hope to see better compatibility in the future (if at all possible).

Thanks!

aboutblank
December 3, 2016

q4osteam · 2016-12-04 10:31

@aboutblank
Thank you for the detailed reporting, it's highly appreciated.

aboutblank wrote:

Also, has anyone successfully installed and run Compiz, and if so, did using it cause any untoward effects?

You could try to install and fiddle with 'compiz-trinity' package, however we have no experience with.

aboutblank · 2016-12-04 23:01

q4osteam wrote:

@aboutblank
Thank you for the detailed reporting, it's highly appreciated.
aboutblank wrote:
Also, has anyone successfully installed and run Compiz, and if so, did using it cause any untoward effects?
You could try to install and fiddle with 'compiz-trinity' package, however we have no experience with.

You're quite welcome.

I tried installing every package in Synaptic Package Manager that I could find after searching 'All' for the word 'Compiz'. I ran "compiz --replace" to activate Compiz. I then set the Window Manager under Contol Panel's settings to use Compiz as my TDE Window Manager. However, I could not find CCSM (Compiz Config Settings Manager), and so could not install it nor run it to control the various settings that Compiz offers. (Searching my 'Bourbon' menu for it also came up empty.) As a result, it appeared that little changed on my desktop after running "compiz --replace".

I plan to restore my last backup and use the Kwin window manager for the 3D effects it offers, putting up with the few drawbacks that I've run into as a result of its use.

Thanks again for your help!

aboutblank
December 4, 2016

aboutblank · 2016-12-05 00:55

aboutblank wrote:

I asked elsewhere, but will ask again here: does anyone know how to "unload" Kwin without logging out and logging back in?!

Actually, I discovered a way to change the desktop manager without signing off and back on, that appears to work: use the Control Panel ! :

To change Desktop Windows Manager: Control Panel - Appearance & Themes (1st item) -
Window Decorations (last item) -
Window Manager (last tab); drop down box selects the
window manager to use, takes effect immediately;

(Note: in TDE's twin, can do immediately by right-clicking
any window's top border, and selecting
Configure Window Behavior..., then Window Decorations,
then the Window Manager tab, etc.; in KDE's kwin, can't do
it this way, so use the Control Panel, as explained above)

(I posted the above in another thread, also, at this link http://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1234 , post #4. That post also includes a small text file with collected tips for Windows users like myself, that one can download.)

aboutblank
December 4, 2016

q4osteam · 2016-12-05 09:17

aboutblank wrote:

(I posted the above in another thread, also, at this link http://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1234 , post #4. That post also includes a small text file with collected tips for Windows users like myself, that one can download.)

Great, you could create a new topic in 'Tips and Tutorials' section http://www.q4os.org/forum/viewforum.php?id=7 by copying these instructions and attaching the 'txt' file. Thanks for the helpful posts.

Q4OS Forum

#1 2016-11-17 07:46

Problems with dual boot Acer Aspire One AO722 Netbook

#2 2016-11-18 08:08

Re: Problems with dual boot Acer Aspire One AO722 Netbook

#3 2016-11-19 07:45

Re: Problems with dual boot Acer Aspire One AO722 Netbook

#4 2016-11-19 09:49

Re: Problems with dual boot Acer Aspire One AO722 Netbook

#5 2016-11-19 10:33

Re: Problems with dual boot Acer Aspire One AO722 Netbook

#6 2016-11-19 10:48

Re: Problems with dual boot Acer Aspire One AO722 Netbook

#7 2016-12-04 01:34

Re: Problems with dual boot Acer Aspire One AO722 Netbook

#8 2016-12-04 10:31

Re: Problems with dual boot Acer Aspire One AO722 Netbook

#9 2016-12-04 23:01

Re: Problems with dual boot Acer Aspire One AO722 Netbook

#10 2016-12-05 00:55

Re: Problems with dual boot Acer Aspire One AO722 Netbook

#11 2016-12-05 09:17

Re: Problems with dual boot Acer Aspire One AO722 Netbook

Board footer