Switching from UEFI to
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! Note !
More notes or links may be added,
if I ever re-visit this page.
Short Cuts to sections of this page, below:
INTRO
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SWITCHING TO LEGACY BOOT MODE
RUNNING A 'LIVE' LINUX DISTRO
SUMMARY
< Go to Table of Contents, below. >
(i.e. Skip the Intro.)
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INTRODUCTION : At this point in time (2013 Jan), it is hard to find good, detailed information on how to install Linux on the new Window 8 PC's that are equipped with 'new BIOS' versions that have the PC initialized in UEFI boot mode (Wikipedia link). The new-circa-2013 UEFI boot mode can make installing Linux a pain ... if only because of all the reading and (re)searching one has to do to get information on how to handle this new boot mode. NOTE: This set of notes is aimed at running Linux IN PLACE OF Windows 8 on a computer. If you are interested in a DUAL-BOOT of Linux and Windows on a computer, this page probably does not have a lot of useful information for you. If you are interested in dual-boot, this YouTube video, entitled 'Dualboot Windows 8 with Linux Mint 14 Nadia' and posted by 'Avoiderrors' on 2012dec05, may be of more use to you. He also posted a video of installing Linux Mint 13 for dual boot with Windows 8. (However, he does not show doing anything special with the UEFI/BIOS settings. This page may help in that regard.) I have installed Linux on five different Acer netbook computers. Most recently (in 2012), I did installs of a couple of versions of Linux Mint on a couple of Acer 11.6" netbooks --- as documented on pages available via a Linux Mint Installs page and another page for a Linux Mint Debian Edition install of a 'rolling-release' version of Mint. Before those Linux Mint installs, I performed some Ubuntu Linux installs on several Acer 10.1" netbooks (in the 2010-2011 time frame). I documented the Ubuntu installs on an Ubuntu Install Notes web page (and sub-pages of that page). On the Ubuntu Install Notes page, I described my journey from using the MS Windows operating system to using Linux --- and I described how I came to choose Ubuntu Linux when I migrated my main computers from MS-Windows to Linux. I consider Ubuntu 9.10 (the 2009 October release, 'Karmic Koala') the last good release of Ubuntu. After that, Ubuntu went down-hill, trying to be an Apple look-alike and ruining a lot of productivity features in the process. It didn't help that Gnome 3 came out around this time (2011) and proceeded to ruin the Gnome 2 experience with lots of 'regressions' in the Nautilus file manager along with 'regressions' in various efficiency and productivity aspects of the desktop experience. So around 2012, I switched to using Linux Mint for my netbook installs. Many Ubuntu users, who did not like the direction that Ubuntu was taking, were switching to Linux Mint. After exploring several Linux alternatives, I too found that Linux Mint seemed to be the best choice for an Ubuntu replacement. UPDATE 2015 Dec 23: (Windows 8 and 10 startup and shutdown explained) I ran across an article entitled 'How Windows 8 Hybrid-Shutdown and Fast-Boot works'. I was wondering why MS Windows 8 (and 10) take so long to shut down. It turns out that MS Windows is saving 'the state of the kernel' in order to make the next startup go faster. The article points out that Windows 8-plus is essentially doing a 'partial hibernate' when you shut down, so that the next boot goes faster. The article points out that when you start up a computer, it goes through 3 major phases:
A shut down operation essentially works in reverse:
From the article: "While the name Fast Boot implies a faster startup routine, the magic actually begins at shut down using a technique Microsoft has called 'Hybrid Shutdown'. When you select the Shutdown command ... the first thing that happens is that the user session shuts down just like in a regular shut down operation. However, instead of closing the kernel session, Windows hibernates the kernel session. Then, the hardware session shuts down normally. When you turn on the computer, the first thing that happens is the system's firmware boots up and gets the basic computer hardware ready for the operating system. On a modern Windows 8 computer, the establishment of the hardware session is a much quicker operation than on older systems because the UEFI system is more efficient than the BIOS system. ... Once the hardware session is ready, the operating system begins its resume operation. Since the resume operation consists only of restoring the kernel session, rather than restoring both the kernel session and the user session [in the classical 'Hibernate' operation], the resume operation can occur much quicker. In addition to this, the resume operation gets a boost from the fact that the operating system is now designed to take advantage of multiple CPU cores when it comes to processing the [kernel] hibernation data file. ... How do you get a fresh kernel session? In other words, how do you achieve a real cold boot? Well, when you click 'Restart', you will indeed get a full reboot of the system and thus a fresh kernel session." This all explains why I was having such a hard time in getting to the UEFI boot menu (as I explain on this web page). The 'FastBoot' happens so fast that it is difficult to get to the boot menu before the operating system kernel starts loading. Some web pages, like this one (at winaero.com), explain how you can disable 'FastBoot' --- by turning off a 'Turn on fast startup' checkbutton in a 'Shutdown Settings' menu of a Windows 8 'System Settings' menu, via a Control Panel. However, if you want to totally replace MS Windows with Linux (which I do), you simply need to get to the UEFI boot menu once. Some web pages, like this one (at support.lenovo.com), indicate that, once logged into Windows 8: "Press and hold the Shift key while selecting the Shutdown option in Windows 8. This will make the PC perform a full shutdown instead of a hybrid shutdown. Then F1 [on Lenovo --- F2 on Acer] or F12 can be pressed successfully during startup." By 'successfully', this means that you will have time to get to the UEFI boot menu by pressing the appropriate key, on the next power-up of the computer. A Bargain Acer 11.6" Netbook As the Christmas season of 2013 December was approaching, I was keeping an eye out for sales of Acer netbooks. If I could find a bargain, I could not resist the temptation of getting another netbook and installing yet a different Linux distro version on it. After all, I could have about 5 Acer netbooks for the price of one Macintosh desktop computer. In the past I had seen Acer netbooks on sale for $180 to $200, when Target or Walmart put them on sale for a week. So I was looking for a price point below $200. I expected to see some Acer 11.6" netbooks for sale around 'Black Friday' in late November 2013 --- especially since Windows 8 was due to come out soon. I expected there to be some clearance sales of Windows 7 netbook computers. However, I did not see any Windows 7 clearance sales. Either the retailers had a deal to return Windows 7 PC's to the makers or they did a good job of not restocking as they sold their remaining inventory. In December 2013, I did, however, see a sale on Acer 11.6" netbooks with the new Windows 8 installed --- for $198 --- at Walmart. But there was reason to be relunctant to buy. I had been reading in various Linux news items about how the various distros (Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse) were dealing with the new UEFI boot issues. It was not a pretty picture: All the major distros jumping through complicated hoops, seemingly each distro pursuing a different solution, often being thwarted by Microsoft --- with none of the solutions being very appealing. As the week of the $198 sale on Acer 11.6" netbooks was coming to an end, I was reluctant to commit to a Windows 8 netbook. I was not sure I could handle the UEFI issues --- even though I was willing to wipe out Windows 8 and use only a Linux distro on the computer. I was in a local Walmart at the end of that sale-week and found that the Electronics department had a couple of the sale computers left. I decided that I may not see any more netbooks for less than $200, so I decided to take a chance and I bought one. Researching the UEFI BIOS-boot issue In the latter part of 2012, there were a lot of puzzling articles on the UEFI issue for Linux users. I could not tell for sure if it was mainly an issue for people who wanted to dual-boot Windows 8 and Linux. That is, I could not tell if those of us who were willing to wipe out Windows 8 were also going to have a lot of problems with Linux installs. I did some Google IMAGE searches on keywords like 'uefi bios boot' and saw a variety of UEFI-BIOS menus in image captures. It seems that there are many different UEFI-BIOS implementations, each with their own presentation of the 'boot menu' options. I have collected some images of various UEFI boot menus on this UEFI Boot Menu Images page. Some UEFI-BIOS developers/vendors had most of the options on one screen, but others had the options spread over 2 or more screens. Most of them did, however, seem to have an option to go to a 'legacy' mode, from the UEFI 'Secure Boot' mode. I was not sure what to expect. Would some versions of BIOS allow for a successful Linux install in 'legacy' mode, but would other versions not offer a 'legacy' mode?? --- or, if a legacy mode were offered, would it prove to be impossible to install Linux, even with a switch to the legacy mode?? I ran across an article by 'a Jesse Smith' at distrowatch.com that gave me some hope. Smith had forgotten to be concerned about the UEFI issue and bought an HP computer with Windows 8 installed, planning to replace it with a Linux distro. After his initial 'doh' moment (slap to the forehead), he managed to figure out how to switch the computer from UEFI-boot-mode to legacy-mode and do a Linux install. That was what convinced me to take a chance on the purchase of the Acer 11.6" netbook on sale for $198 at Walmart. Just in case that Distrowatch web page becomes unavailable, here are the steps that Smith outlined (for his new Windows 8 HP desktop computer):
I'm not the only one who loves netbooks : A month after I bought my netbook, there was a burst of news items on the internet saying that Asus and Acer had announced that they were no longer going to make netbooks. Many people who have never really tried a netbook (at least not one running Linux) weighed in, on many of the news-report web pages, to say how bad netbooks are --- underpowered, etc. In the same comment threads, many people expressed their great experiences with netbooks and recounted many of the things they liked/loved about them --- such as light-weight (great for traveling) and more productive for them than an iPad-like device (especially if they used a mouse instead of the touchpad, on the netbook). I have collected some quotes from some of those who clearly stated their reasons why they loved their netbooks. See this Netbook Love page. I have never found netbooks to be underpowered for my uses. I do lots of web searching and program development (shell scripting and Tcl-Tk scripting) on them and find them to be quite responsive. I do not watch many videos, but I find the Acer 11.6" netbooks with the AMD C60 or C70 chip to be quite capable of viewing most videos. Some people were pointing out that netbooks would not really go away. They are just going to come out in slightly different form. For example, there is an explosion of laptops with different screen sizes now. It used to be 15.6" and 17" was the norm. Then came 10.1" and 11.6" netbooks. And then 13" and 14" laptops --- with or without CD/DVD drive. In the 2014-1015 time frame, I will probably be looking for 11.6" or 13" laptops (with no CD/DVD drive) that weigh less than 3 pounds (about 1.36 kilograms). And there are other alternatives on the horizon. The OLTP (One Laptop per Child) project has recently announced its XO computer will be sold in retail stores. (It has a hand-crank option for powering it.) And the new Raspberry Pi computer-on-a-small-board (for about $35) has many small-board 'imitators' (mostly using Linux as the operating system). The Raspberry Pi or its 'imitators' will probably grow into a decent migration path from a netbook --- as they add more capability to those devices and new manufacturers appear out of that technology segment. Personally, I think that the computer manufacturers were not liking the fact that netbooks were cannabalizing their sales of higher-profit-margin laptop PC's --- such as 15" and 17" laptops and the new ultra-expensive 'ultrabooks' that Intel seemed to be pushing strongly (probably for the higher profit margins). For me, the 'ultra' in 'ultrabooks' stands for 'ultra-expensive' and 'ultra-ripoff' and 'ultra-price-fixing'. Personally, I will not pay $900 for an 'ultrabook' when the only real advantage over a $250 computer is that it boots faster from a solid-state storage drive. Boot-up is a one-time occurrence in a computer session. As long as the hundreds of operations I do in a computer session go rapidly, I can tolerate about 30 seconds extra in boot time. I have things I can do in those 30 seconds. End of this introduction I had better stop this introduction and present my documentation on switching from 'UEFI boot mode' to 'legacy boot mode' on this Acer netbook --- or, as I am tempted to call it, from 'Microsoft boot mode' to 'non-Microsoft boot mode'. I also present some info on setting the order of the 'boot-devices' --- to prepare for trying one or more 'live' Linux distros that I had on USB sticks. A table of contents and the documentation sections follow. The table of contents contains links to several sections of the notes below. Alternatively, for navigation, you can use the 'Find text' option of your web browser to look for keywords on this page. For example, if you are looking for information on USB device issues, you could search for 'usb'. OR, simply scroll down this page. The notes within each section are usually in order chronologically --- that is, according to the issues that I encountered. |
Table of Contents:(links to sections of this page, below)
End of Table of Contents. Start of Boot Notes sections. |
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On my previous 5 Acer netbook computers, the F2 key could be used, on boot up of the computer, to get to the BIOS menus. Before the Acer splash screen would appear, a hint appeared, briefly, at the bottom of the screen, as text on a dark screen. The text indicated that F2 could be used to access the BIOS menu. However, there was no such hint on these new Windows 8 netbooks. And when I tried powering on and then repeatedly pressing the F2 key, I would always go to the Windows 8 login prompt. I could not get to the 'BIOS' menus --- or perhaps now 'UEFI' menus is the proper term. After doing some web searches (on my desktop computer), on various combinations of keywords such as 'uefi' and 'bios' and 'boot' and 'menu' and 'disable' and 'acer' and '725-0687' and 'windows 8', I saw a link to a YouTube video titled 'How to disable Secure Boot Policy | Windows 8', posted by 'mihai0796'. I watched that video. It indicated that you could use a path through the 'Settings' option of Windows 8 to get to an option that would take you to the UEFI (boot) menus, from within Window 8. Then I noticed a video titled 'Windows 8 - Accessing the UEFI (BIOS) Setup' posted by 'AcerAmerica Service'. This Acer video showed the same path through the Acer menus. According to these videos, you should be able to get to a Windows 8 screen that looks like the following image. |
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Unfortunately, on my Acer AO725-0687, when I got to this screen, it had 5 options, NOT six. And guess which one was missing? Of course. The UEFI option. Back to trying 'F' keys So it looked like I was not going to get to the boot menu from within Windows 8. I was back to trying key presses during boot up. I had already tried the usual keys --- F2, Esc, Del, F10, and more. I finally decided to try holding down the F2 key BEFORE I pressed the power-on button. Guess what? It worked. The 'Information' boot menu screen came up almost immediately, as seen in the image below. |
The 'Information' menu of the Acer 'InsydeH2O' boot menu system.
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I had been pressing the power-on button and THEN repeatedly pressing the F2 key --- which had worked on all my other Acer netbooks. Perhaps the process of starting the operating system boot-up is so quick now, that one has to be pressing the F2 key when the power-on button is pressed. In any case, pressing the F2 key and holding it down while the power-on button is pressed seems to be the way to get to the UEFI menus on this Acer netbook. I do not have to repeatedly press the F2 key as I have done (perhaps needlessly) in the past. |
This shows the 'Boot' UEFI sub-menu on the Acer netbook
--- with 'Boot Mode' set to 'Legacy BIOS'.
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Also, 'USB FDD' is moved to the top of the 'boot priority order',
to support booting Linux from a USB 'stick'.
The 'Exit' UEFI sub-menu on the Acer netbook.
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I used 'Exit Saving Changes'. Now I was ready to try booting a 'Live' Linux distro from a USB 'stick'. |
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With the netbook powered down, I inserted a USB-stick containing the LMDE 201204 'hybrid' ISO that I had downloaded from the Linux Mint site and put on the USB stick according to Clem's instructions at community.linuxmint.com I powered up the Acer netbook. The LMDE desktop appeared within about 30 seconds. The network-manager applet icon was on the bottom right of the task panel at the bottom of the screen. When I clicked on it, it opened and showed the access-point names in our neighborhood (about 5 names). I clicked on my access point and got a 'WPA' prompt for a password. Soon after I entered the password (and a password for a 'keyring' prompt), I got a popup that said I had connected to my access point (my wireless router in my house). I then opened the Linux Mint software panel (by clicking on the icon on the left of the task bar at the bottom of the screen). I clicked on Firefox, and within about 10 seconds, the Firefox window appeared and connection was made to its default startup URL --- a Linux Mint web page. So that was great! The wireless connection was working. Monitor resolution : When I had installed Linux Mint 11 (in Nov 2011) on another Acer 11.6" netbook, the text and icons on the desktop were elongated, horizontally. 1024x768 had been chosen as the screen resolution, instead of 1366x768. So I was pleasantly surprised that the LMDE 201204 'Live' session had started up with the proper screen resolution, 1366x768. So my two main concerns, wireless network connection and proper display screen resolution, were handled nicely. Other tests : One thing that disappointed me about the Linux Mint 11 (spring 2011) distro as well as the Linux Mint LMDE 201204 distro is that they did not have an 'Examples' icon on the desktop like some past Ubuntu releases provided. On Ubuntu, when you clicked on the 'Examples' icon, you were presented with several sub-directories of test files --- such as image files, audio files, PDF files, OpenOffice documents. Rather than spend time trying to find such files in various directories of the LMDE install, I decided to assume that the viewers/readers/players of those types of files would just work --- especially since it is unlikely that there were any audio files in the distro with which to do an audio test. But if I were a first-time Linux installer, I would be really ticked-off that there was not an easy-quick way to test if the audio of this netbook worked with this distro. Lucky for me, since I had experience with audio working 'out-of-the-box' in Ubuntu installs on Acer netbooks, and in the Linux Mint 11 install on an Acer 11.6" netbook, I could feel fairly confident that audio (and probably video) playback would work. At this point I stopped. I will probably try an install of a Linux-with-MATE-desktop-environment distro in late 2014 or in 2015 --- when 'mature' versions of MATE-friendly Linux distros are available.
SOME TOPICS THAT I MAY ADD SOMEDAY :
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I use a netbook in front of the TV at home --- to do something contructive during the ridiculous amount of ads being shown on ALL the TV channels nowadays. I can quickly pack the netbook computer away when company comes. And I can easily take the netbook to other rooms, like to the kitchen table to work there --- or beside a desktop computer, say to use a wired ethernet connection there, during an install. Furthermore, the netbooks are handy to take to LUG (Lunux User Group) meetings and to Linux (and Tcl-Tk) conferences --- to demo software. I intend to do Linux installs on new netbooks --- and Linux installs to new desktop computers --- into the distant future. These new computers will probably have Microsoft 'secure boot' enabled, which I may have to work around. These notes may aid me in those new installs. In my other pages on Linux installs (Ubuntu installs and Linux Mint installs), I concluded by saying that a major lesson to be learned from my Ubuntu installs and from a Linux Mint 11 install and an LMDE install is that, on almost any hardware configuration, you will probably have to spend a few hours --- or even a day or two --- resolving some installation issues. AT FIRST, I was pleasantly surprised by my 2012 LMDE installation to disk. I did not have monitor-resolution issues or wireless-connection issues that I had in previous Linux installs. And, AT FIRST, it appeared that I would have no hang on re-booting after the install-to-disk, like I encountered in an Ubuntu install on a Dell desktop. Alas, smooth sailing was not to be. I did, after all, encounter a persistent hang after re-boots --- a real show-stopper that would not let me get to my desktop even once. However, once again, persistence paid off, and I was able to end up with a decent install. On both of my Acer 11.6" netbooks with an AMD C60 chip, it turned out that I needed to move 'Network Boot' to the top of the boot sequence, via the BIOS menu system. With the 2012 LMDE install-to-disk, other than the 'Network Boot' issue, most of my post-installation time was spent on choosing applications to install and configuring them after their installs. If I DO encounter any more issues with LMDE, I know that I can probably get past the issues by using the Ubuntu forums or Linux Mint forums or Debian forums or Google queries like the Google-query-links in my Ubuntu and Linux Mint Install Notes web pages. (NOTE: It is STILL not clear yet whether the quality and extent of support on the Linux Mint sites will ever approach the quality and extent available at the Ubuntu and Debian sites. For example, the 'Network Boot'-to-top-of-boot-sequence solution was found at an 'askubuntu.com' page.) Coming to a conclusion, finally : I repeat what I said at the bottom of my Ubuntu Install Notes web page : For me, the breath of freedom and the breaDth of freedom on Gnu/Linux --- especially in the form of the powerful shell scripting (and Tcl-Tk scripting) available --- is a big selling point for using Linux. Other selling points: the available apps for web browsing and email and FTP --- Seamonkey-Thunderbird-Filezilla --- and ImageMagick and 'mtpaint' for image processing for web page development --- and SciTE for text editing (esp. script development and web page creation/editing) --- and a quite decent, stable file manager in Nautilus (or Caja).
(Some info on Nautilus/Caja shortcomings is in my Nautilus Notes web page. For me, these file managers suffer mostly from the following issues. I use my 'FINDlists' Nautilus/Caja Scripts --- available from freedomenv.com --- to overcome the search inadequacies --- so no problemo. And there is an easy fix, via inserting a little '.gnomerc' config file in your home directory structure, to make the filename sorts of Nautilus more likable --- as described in my Nautilus Notes page. However, Nautilus/Caja developers should give us some sort options through the Nautilus/Caja 'Edit > Preferences' pathway. I have filed a request for the ability to specify a desired sort technique --- both with MATE-Caja developers at github.com/mate-desktop/mate-file-manager and with GNOME-Nautilus developers at bugzilla.gnome.org.) Here is an image showing how the sort options could be added to the existing 'Behavior' panel of 'Edit > Preferences'.
Alternatively, a new 'Sort' panel could be added to the existing 'View', 'Behavior', 'Display', 'List Columns', 'Preview', and 'Media' panels of 'Edit Preferences'. (See the six panel tabs in the image of the 'File Management Preferences' window, above.) On Nautilus/Caja performance : Another shortcoming of Nautilus/Caja (that I notice more on my netbook computers than on my desktop computer) is their slowness in bringing up lists of filenames. The slowness on my desktop computer is only noticed in navigating to directories containing more than 2,000 files (such as /usr/bin or /usr/lib --- about 8 to 15 seconds to a completed list display, the first time opening those directories in a login session). Directory lists, for directories containing around 300 files (like /usr/sbin and /usr/share), appear almost instantly, on my desktop computer. NOT SO on this netbook installation of LMDE. Even though I have used the 'Edit > Preferences > Preview' path of Nautilus and Caja to set the options
to 'Never', it can take quite a few seconds for the directory list, for directories containing around 300 files, to appear. I am pretty sure that a lot of the slowdown is due to Nautilus and Caja insisting on putting little icons to the left of the filenames, as seen in the following image.
Those icon files (in /usr/share/icons subdirectories) are about 1 Kilobyte in size, each. Compare that to the 8-bits (one byte) that the 'ls -F' command uses to put file type indicators like * (asterisk) and @ (at sign) and / (slash) after filenames. It takes over 100 times the bits --- for an icon image versus a single ASCII character indicator. I would be quite happy to do without the little icons if it would mean almost instantaneous display of large directory lists. The little triangle to the left of directory names is enough to indicate directories to me (and to allow expansion of those directories into a 'sub-list'). I do not need the folder icons. And I do not need the little globe icons and page icons (etc. etc.) to the left of files like '.htm' and '.txt' files. I can tell the file types by the suffixes I gave them. And even if I do not provide a suffix, I can usually tell what type of file it is since I created it. (Or I can make a Nautilus Script, using the 'file' command, to tell me the type of a selected file.) So, PLEASE, Nautilus and Caja developers, ADD AN OPTION to the 'Edit > Preferences > Views' panel --- to allow me to turn off display of ALL icons beside filenames. A new 'no icons' option could be added to the 'Views' panel, as illustrated in the following image.
If this option were checked, then the example icons-beside-filenames image (shown a few paragraphs above) would then look like the following image. (NOTE the 'generic' icons are gone.)
OR, the filenames list could appear like the following image. (Note that the space formerly occupied by the icons is now used by the left-adjusted filenames.)
I have filed a request for a 'no icons' option in 'ListView' mode --- both with MATE-Caja developers at github.com/mate-desktop/mate-file-manager/issues/ and with GNOME-Nautilus developers at bugzilla.gnome.org. If the Nautilus and Caja developers do not get around to giving us a 'no icons' option in ListView mode, I guess I will have to enhance the file-and-directory navigator Tcl-Tk scripts in the 'feHandyTools' subsystem of my Freedom Environment software system to serve for file management, in place of Nautilus and Caja. The main right-click-menu options that I need are 'Scripts', 'Rename', 'Delete', 'Cut', 'Copy', 'Paste', and 'Properties'. I have already implemented the 'Scripts' capability in Tcl-Tk file manager scripts --- so that I have an alternative in case the Gnome-Nautilus and MATE-Caja developers drop (or screw up) the 'Nautilus Scripts' capability. I just need to add the 'Rename', 'Delete', 'Cut', 'Copy', 'Paste', and 'Properties' options. It is pretty sad (but pretty fortunate) that I can make a faster file manager with a scripting language (Tcl-Tk), than Gnome-Nautilus and MATE-Caja developers can make using compiled languages. By the way, for KDE fans out there, I had to forget about using KDE on netbooks, because of the gross processing overhead of almost all KDE utilities. I described the 'venetian blind' effect that I got from the KDE Menu cascade in my first Linux installs on netbooks. See my 'Ubuntu Installs' web page. A pretty happy camper : I keep finding more to like (and bits, here and there, to dislike) in the Linux distros that I have installed. But, so far, I think I can cut the cord to MS Windows (EXCEPT for U.S. federal and state taxes software) --- as long as the Linux apps and distros and kernel keep getting better. |
