Update - 2021

I wrote this blog in 2017 and never completed some of the details. There’s a few details and specific commands missing, and at this stage I wouldn’t be able to fill them in reliably.

Some people have still read this blog, so I assume there’s some value in keeping it up in it’s current state. Just note that there’s gaps that you’ll need to figure out on your own.

Introduction

I just got my Ubuntu installation finished on my Zenbook. For the most part I could just follow other guides, but there were a few things that had to be done.

Preface: I encountered some issues installing Ubuntu onto my laptop. If you’re able to install a newer version of Ubuntu immediately, then go for it. However, I was unable to get to the installer, even when following guides here.

Ingredients:

  • 2 USB memory sticks
  • An external keyboard (Optional)
  • An ethernet to USB adapter

Preparation

Make an Ubuntu USB

I first created a bootable USB for Ubuntu. I had some issues with Ubuntu 16.04 onwards booting into the the installer properly. So I ended up using initially Ubuntu 14.04 (upgrading to 16.04 later on).

First I downloaded the Ubuntu 14.04 image, and the software Rufus. Rufus is used to create your bootable USB drve. You can use an alternative if you want, but I found Rufus fairly easy to use.

Make a Windows Recovery USB

Just in case you break everything here, you can restore your laptop to a functional state by using the Windows Recovery disk.

Follow the steps here to create a Windows Recovery USB.

Shrinking the Windows partition

Skip this if you’re replacing Windows entirely. But I wanted to keep my Windows partition around just in case. And it’s not much extra work if you’re willing to sacrifice a little bit of your storage.

  1. Make a windows backup disk. You want this. Just in case you successfully break everything, having this is a nice reset button. You can read here for information:

  2. Shrink your partition. This is unfortunately going to be a bit more work than just shrinking the windows partition. Give it a go, but you’ll likely have some unmoveable files. For the most part you can follow the guides here. The only catch was that I had to configure the swap size in the UI and manually delete some restore points that had already been created. Follow instructions here:

You shouldn’t need to install any 3rd party software, but if it gets tough you can try something, unfortunately I cannot recommend any, so you’ll need to do your own research.

Once you’ve shrunk your partition you’re ready to install Ubuntu.

Installing Ubuntu

I encountered some issues when trying to following this guide <> to install Ubuntu 16.04 immediately. Specifically, when trying to modify the Grub settings, my ‘p’ key would register as ‘*’. I spent some time trying to figure out how I could programatically get around this, until I discovered my ‘)’ key had a similar issue. I managed to work around this with my external keyboard (model) being recognised correctly. However, I was consistently stuck with CPU locking and never starting the 16.04 installer. So I had to give up on 16.04. I was running into similar issues with 17.10, but didn’t give it as much time. So it may have been resolvable.

Next I tried 14.04. This did boot. Sometimes the trackpad doesn’t work, rebooting seems sufficient to fix this. But an external mouse may also work. Even with my ethernet plugged in I couldn’t get the installer to recognise my internet connection. So I had to resolve some stuff afterwards.

Go through the Ubuntu installation flow. You should have 14.04 working.

Next we need to get up to date again! You should see Ethernet is working now. However WiFi was not. It turns out I need Linux kernel 4.10+ for WiFi support. 14.04 gives you 4.4. I couldn’t find any evidence of Ubuntu 14.04 playing well with the 4.10 linux kernel. But we can do an upgrade to 16.04 and be okay.

This step is likely unnecessary. However do a quick apt-get update and apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade (Ubuntu installer will prompt you to do this anyways).

Now begin the process of upgrading Ubuntu to 16.04:

Once you have Ubuntu 16.04 installed, you should be able to install the 4.10 kernel with . Reboot and WiFi should now be working.

At this stage I was happy to pause on configuration. I wanted to start development on my laptop.

Things to to:

  • The speakers misbehave. They are either 0% or 100%. No inbetween.
  • Upgrade Ubuntu to 17.10.
  • Battery pluggin in doesn’t update icon to say charging.

Fixing speaker issues

After installation, I found that the speakers would either be 0% or 100% volume, with no value inbetween. Obviously this sucks. I wrote up a workaround to this on StackOverflow, which I am too lazy to copy back here: Volume not Adjusting (Ubuntu 16.04)