[Installation] Installing Kubuntu 18.04 in a very limited space

[Empu1]

Greetings everybody. This is my first post in the Kubuntu Forums community so I hope I'm doing this in the correct place.

See, I've got a small, detachable laptop and I'm honestly getting tired of completely running out of space thanks to Windows Updates. The machine I'm talking about is an HP x2 210 which has an Intel Atom x5-Z8300 processor (Cherry Trail), 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of eMMC (if I remember correctly?) storage. Since this isn't exactly a powerful machine I use it mostly for simple tasks, such as browsing, reading eBooks and multimedia reproduction. No gaming other than emulation or anything demanding really. Would the Minimal install option be a good way to get this OS working with what I've got? Is it safe to install without making separate partitions for things such as home and swap?

Thank you for your time!

[GregM]

Can you replace the h-drive with a larger SSD?

[Empu1]

Can you replace the h-drive with a larger SSD?

I believe both RAM and H-drive are "integrated" and not user replaceable. My only other option for storing media (which is where I currently keep my music, videos and books) is through a Micro SD card

[GregM]

Bummer

[GreyGeek]

Msg's #6 and #7 of this thread gives useful info for Ubuntu 16.04.
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2311583
Will Bionic be better?
What I suggest is to burn a checksummed Bionic ISO to a USB stick and boot from the USB stick. Then see what works and what doesn't for YOUR machine, without harming your Win10 installation. I suspect that you won't be happy with the results.

[Empu1]

I'm testing the live version of Kubuntu through a USB stick and while it works good for the most part, there's one major problem: I have no audio. I can connect to my wifi, use Firefox, see bluetooth devices, use my Micro SD card, you name it.. but for some reason it just won't play any audio. Songs and videos are muted (videos do play, just without any sound)

Edit: Just saw that link. Looks like the audio issue persists, but the rest seems to be fixed. I have no issues with my Micro SD Card, I can see my battery status (96% and charging), the hardware buttons to control the volume work and so does the one for opening the menu bar. I wonder what could be failing here, since it even seems to recognize the audio device itself. It shows: "Analog Output Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5".

[claydoh]

Atom SoC devices have poor to non-existent sound support, in general, though people are still trying. As I understand it, it is not that there are no drivers, but it is the way the sound system is integrated in the SoC.

Anyway, what I did on my HP x10 2 in one, which is slightly older with an atom Z3735F, was to install it into a fast sdcard as I was toying with Android-x86 on it.

What you can do as a similar option is to put your /home on the sdcard.
Using the minimal install is very helpful, as it not only saves space but also leaves out memory-sucking things such as Kontact/Kmail which will make heavy use of Akonadi. I would also turn off file indexing. As to separating partitions, that is up to you. With limited drive space, it is probably better to have it all on one partition, so you don't run out of space down the road if your root gets full.You will want to let it make a swap partition as you likely will want it with only 2gb ram.
Before the btrfs fan squad chimes in, I am not sure this format is appropriate on a low ram low space slower cpu situation.

[Empu1]

Atom SoC devices have poor to non-existent sound support, in general, though people are still trying. As I understand it, it is not that there are no drivers, but it is the way the sound system is integrated in the SoC...

Anyway, what I did on my HP x10 2 in one, which is slightly older with an atom Z3735F, was to install it into a fast sdcard as I was toying with Android-x86 on it.

What you can do as a similar option is to put your /home on the sdcard.
Using the minimal install is very helpful, as it not only saves space but also leaves out memory-sucking things such as Kontact/Kmail which will make heavy use of Akonadi. I would also turn off file indexing. As to separating partitions, that is up to you. With limited drive space, it is probably better to have it all on one partition, so you don't run out of space down the road if your root gets full.You will want to let it make a swap partition as you likely will want it with only 2gb ram.
Before the btrfs fan squad chimes in, I am not sure this format is appropriate on a low ram low space slower cpu situation.

I'm going to see if I find a way to have working sound before I even attempt to install though. Would be a deal breaker to have a mute laptop.

Do you know if a swap partition can be problematic on this type of storage? I mean, since this is not a regular hard drive and all..

Will be testing potential audio fixes later on when I'm back home. Worst case scenario, I'll just stick with my Windows system (which I know will once again complain about space when the next update is out next Monday, hahaha)

[SpecialEd]

Curious, how old is your machine?

[GreyGeek]

....
Do you know if a swap partition can be problematic on this type of storage? I mean, since this is not a regular hard drive and all..

....)

A swap device can be either a partition or a file. But, since Linux sees EVERYTHING as a file, they are structurally the same and transparent to what is underneath.

[Empu1]

Curious, how old is your machine?

Originally released (and bought) in 2015

A swap device can be either a partition or a file. But, since Linux sees EVERYTHING as a file, they are structurally the same and transparent to what is underneath.

A technical answer, nice. Thanks for the info! Learning is always a good thing

[claydoh]

I'm going to see if I find a way to have working sound before I even attempt to install though. Would be a deal breaker to have a mute laptop.

Do you know if a swap partition can be problematic on this type of storage? I mean, since this is not a regular hard drive and all..

Will be testing potential audio fixes later on when I'm back home. Worst case scenario, I'll just stick with my Windows system (which I know will once again complain about space when the next update is out next Monday, hahaha)

I don't know how it could be detrimental. Not sure what the life span of emmc storage is, but i imagine it being somewhere between sdcard and ssd drives. If you keep browser tabs to a minimum you probably won't hit swap too often.

Sent from my LG-H931 using Tapatalk

[Empu1]

I don't know how it could be detrimental. Not sure what the life span of emmc storage is, but i imagine it being somewhere between sdcard and ssd drives. If you keep browser tabs to a minimum you probably won't hit swap too often.

Sent from my LG-H931 using Tapatalk

Thanks for the tip!

I've found something about Linuxium ISO Respin which supposedly helps with Cherry Trail processors. I'll have to look into this one and I'll post my findings later

Edit: I've now tried using ISO Respin with the "make suitable for Intel Atom" option and believe it or not it actually made things worse. When booting this new ISO I noticed that the boot process was much faster than before so I thought things were about to improve, but nope. Wireless card isn't recognized anymore and the hardware buttons on the side of the laptop didn't work either.

I'm pretty much convinced that GreyGeek was right when they said I was not going to be happy with the results, haha.

[claydoh]

each atom device seems to be just different enough to make it ...fun
You might poke around on linuxium's other site and look for some of his pre-built isos.