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I am not new using Ubuntu but I am new working with laptops.

Recently, I've installed Ubuntu on my new Acer Swift 3, with the following conclusions and concerns:

Even I've read a lot of post that somehow the laptop is not compatible with Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS, so far so good. I only updated the BIOS to the latest version (1.05).

It came with Windows 10 and I made an installation without delete Win10, but two concern came up:
Somehow the grub menu works fine with Ubuntu, but when I enter to Windows, it reboots the laptop and go directly to Windows, Is this something that can be fixed?
Do you know if warranty is lost if I make a full installation of Ubuntu?

Following the point that in Internet, the laptop is being shown as non-compatible with Ubuntu. Does somebody know if there are still compatibility issues?

I would really appreciate your response, and sorry for my bad English!

Thanks,
Nicolás.

abu_bua
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nariver1
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  • Welcome to askUbuntu, Nicolas! Marketing will ever tell that Ubuntu is not compatible... it's bullshit, of course. Certainly, warranty will not be broken if the root of your problem were not be Ubuntu! :0). Probably you will have to boot Win10-cd to do a system repair, just it... – Redbob Aug 30 '17 at 01:47
  • Thanks for the welcome!

    Regarding the Marketing, I've read some post from people writing about their laptops not working correctly with Ubuntu.

    Do you think it is really bad marketing?

     – nariver1 Aug 30 '17 at 15:28
  • The opinion of some people is not merely marketing... if they tried to install Ubuntu and it not worked, you should consider it. – Redbob Aug 30 '17 at 15:31

7 Answers7

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Somehow the Grub menu works fine with Ubuntu, but when I enter to Windows, it reboots the laptop and go directly to Windows, Is this something that can be fixed?

Unless i did not understand your question because of bad translation, this looks perfectly normal to me. There is this Grub (GRand Unified Bootloader) menu. It lets you choose which system to boot. Boot some Linux distribution or Windows. In all cases, "it reboots the laptop and go directly to..." the chosen system. So this is not "something to be fixed", this is good, and normal.

Sébastien Bouchard
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I have Ubuntu 19.04 on Acer Swift 3. Everything is fine but the microphone (external or internal) and the fingerprint reader are not working. Apparently some drivers are missing.

I hope that will be fixed soon because I have laptop without microphone now. No video calls for me. I will have to switch to Windows if this doesn't get fixed.

So Acer Swift 3 is NOT compatible with Ubuntu.

Damir
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Try the 20.10 beta from the Ubuntu release server https://releases.ubuntu.com/. Here are the features of Ubuntu 20.10 https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/10/ubuntu-20-10-beta-download. It has GNOME 3.38 and Linux 5.8 kernel with better AMD Renoir support. It is working great at the moment on my Acer Swift 3 SF314-41. Below are the functionalities that I was battling with 20.04.1 which are now working in 20.10:

  1. Lock on lid close is working.
  2. Resume from suspend is also working.
  3. Accessibility setting now retains after restart.

Write the ISO file to a USB flash drive with Rufus. Instruction is at https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows#1-overview

cabpacedilla
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I managed to install Ubuntu 18.04 successfully on an Acer swift 3 and got rid of windows 10. (I did a back up though). So far, the only issue I have is that I do not seem to get the microphone to work. I am not very well versed in computing so I have not run extensive tests, and I guess the finger id is not working either but I have never used it anyway.

Hope this helps somewhat
all the best
Marc

abu_bua
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Marc Lucas
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I have just bought Acer Swift 3 SF314-56G, hardwares should probably same except the graphic card, which with the G addition means it uses dedicated graphic card. Everything is good after installing Ubuntu 18.04. For series with dedicated graphic card (probably nVidia GeForce MX 150 or nVidia GeForce MX 250 like mine), you should install nividia-430 from this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

The most questioned issue from users having Acer Swift 3 (all series) after installing Ubuntu is that both internal and external microphones are not working. The workaround would be by adding options snd-hda-intel model=dell-headset-multi in the bottom of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf, and reboot notebook. If you want quick apply the change, just run sudo alsa force-reload. After that workaround is applied, try connecting your external headset (headphone with microphone), then an audio mode selection popup will show, just select Headset mode, and your external microphone will work. The only problem after applying that workaround is that my internal microphone is still unusable. I see from kernel.org site that the bug has been tracked and is still in progress (https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=201251).

Rendy Eko Prastiyo
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Mine is working with the older kernel. Below are the steps that I used. I set the older kernel in the grub file:

  1. Download the Ubuntu desktop iso at https://ubuntu.com/#download
  2. Write the ISO file to a USB flash drive with Rufus. Instruction is at https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows#1-overview
  3. Restart and keep pressing the F2 key to access the BIOS
  4. Navigate to the Boot menu and set USB as the 1st boot priority with the F6 key
  5. Press F10 to save and exit the changes
  6. Select Install Ubuntu alongside with Windows 10
  7. The installer will automatically set an Ubuntu partition size with your HDD but you can drag the vertical divider of the partitioning tool to set the Ubuntu partition according to your partition size preference.
  8. Proceed and complete the installation.
  9. Restart and keep pressing F2 and set Ubuntu as the 1st boot priority with the F6 key
  10. Press F10 to save and exit the changes
  11. Select Advanced options of Ubuntu in the grub boot menu
  12. Select the recovery mode line Ubuntu GNU/Linux, with Linux 5.4.0-26-generic (recovery mode)
  13. Select "Drop to root shell prompt"
  14. Make a backup copy of /etc/default/grub with the cp command
  15. Edit /etc/default/grub with nano and update GRUB_DEFAULT=0 to the older kernel listed in the Advanced options like GRUB_DEFAULT="Advanced options for Ubuntu>Ubuntu, with Linux 5.4.0-26-generic"
  16. Update the line with nomodeset GRUB_CMDLINE_LINnoUX_DEFAULTGRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"
  17. Save the file and exit
  18. Reboot with the reboot command
  19. Install lightdm and set as default display manager because gdm display manager is very laggy even after system idle becomes very slow.
  20. Install chromium-browser
  21. Set CPU governor to conservative: a. sudo apt-get install cpufrequtils b. Then edit the /etc/init.d/cpufrequtils file and change GOVERNOR to "conservative" (GOVERNOR="conservative"). c. You can do this automatically by using the following command: sudo sed -i 's/^GOVERNOR=.*/GOVERNOR="conservative"/' /etc/init.d/cpufrequtils sudo systemctl disable ondemand
  22. Reboot the laptop and login

There is a problem when waking up from suspend the screen remains black.

cabpacedilla
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I bought an acer swift 3 couple of months back , since then i wanted to have a linux distro on it,There was a lot of noise around it compatibility with ubuntu, finally i decided to install it and get rid of windows completely, Its been over a week now and i have not seen or observed any kind of issue with it (apart form the fingerprint reader not working). the internal microphone as well as blue-tooth works quite well.

Nishant Kumar
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