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m3800 - recovery image
Dear Dell,
I've just taken delivery of a brand new developer edition m3800, and had problems with the dell-recovery tool crashing, and refusing to build a recovery USB.
After applying the fixes mentioned here :https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dell-recovery/+bug/1431857
and then updating Ubuntu to 14.04-2 I was able to run the dell-recovery tool successfully.
As my workplace has a "whole-disk" encrption policy, I then used this USB drive to re-install Ubuntu, setting encryption on, and then found that the new install has non of the Dell customizations - i.e. no dell repository or branding.
I did take an image of the original system before the wipe, so I can put the m3800 back to where it was, but if I can't re-install the machine with whole disk encryption, then it's not something I'll be able to recommend for our users, which would be a shame.
I tried phoning Dell technical support, but this got me nowhere as they were not able to issue a recovery iso image, and didn't really understand that Dell are shipping Ubuntu on this machine.
Finally, despite the above problems, I'm very impressed with the hardware support on this machine. It's a shame that there is not equal support for Redhat / Centos, as this is our preferred Linux distro, however I can understand that the slow dev cycle of RHEL complicates matters.
best,
Jake
DELL-Jared D
350 Posts
2
April 16th, 2015 08:00
Hi Jack. I passed on your feedback about your tech support experience. It seems to me like we still have some work to do on making sure everyone on our support staff knows about Ubuntu.
As far as drivers, on the recovery image, there is a directory (I think called "debs") containing the packages that get installed on top of the vanilla Ubuntu 14.04 image. You should be able to install those packages on top of your encrypted install. Also verify that all the repositories under /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ get added so that those Dell enablement packages stay up-to-date.
jakemrc
11 Posts
0
April 21st, 2015 04:00
Hi Jared,
Thank you for the info, the packages in the deb folder installed fairly cleanly, so the laptop is now working much better, and has full disk encryption. There were some minor issues with GPG keys for the Dell Ubuntu repositories, but I think I've now have the machine working OK.
Looking to the future, is there any possibility of you releasing a customised Dell iso image that simplifies re-installation?
many thanks
Jake
DELL-Jared D
350 Posts
0
April 21st, 2015 08:00
I'm glad that worked for you.
I'm not sure. Perhaps it's possible to patch the dell-recovery package do enable this. That's not an area I'm familiar with, though.
Vassil
17 Posts
0
April 23rd, 2015 09:00
I also just received an M3800 with Ubunty pre-installed. Am I correct in understanding that the installation does no offer the option to encrypt the disk (or rather the general and swap partions), and the solution is to reinstall 14.04, with the additional steps of getting the Dell-specific packages and repositories added?
jakemrc
11 Posts
0
April 27th, 2015 02:00
Hi Vassil,
Yes, you need to wipe the installation and start again. The Ubuntu installer will ask you if you want to use whole partition encryption. The alternative is to just encrypt the user home areas, which a lot of workplaces do not allow.
I'd strongly suggest you make a copy of the Factory install hard disk, as it has numerous packages & repository settings that you may find are a useful reference after the install. It might even (ahem!) be easier to fit another SSD, and keep the Dell disk for reference or as a fall back.
Cheers,
Jake
daveckidd
1 Message
0
May 22nd, 2015 04:00
Hi,
I've hit the same issue.
My questions are...
Could you just confirm the easiest/best way to install the debs?
Is there a way to install all of them in one go, or do I have to go through them one at a time?
Do all of them need installing or are there packages that are specific to the M3800 and others that aren't?
Will installing these fix the resolution issue (i.e. from the standard install fonts are all very small) or do I need to do something else to fix that?
Many thanks
glassresistor
1 Message
0
December 2nd, 2015 13:00
I have a similar kind of laptop Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu and want to reinstall with either ubuntu or debian. Outside of the packages and the repositories are their any other configs i should be concerned with?
jakobst
4 Posts
0
January 8th, 2016 06:00
Hi Jake or Jared!
I read this post and tried to wipe my newly arrived M3800 with Ubuntu 14.04 preinstalled to install with full disk encryption. However, after choosing erasing disk and encrypting my 256 GB SSD (installed at sdb - I have a normal 500GB HDD at sda) from the created USB recovery disk, something seems to have failed. I get to a window that says "Installation complete" and that I need to restart the computer in order to use the new installation. However when I push the "Restart Now" button and reboot instead of loading into the new Ubuntu installation I get a BusyBox screen:
"BusyBox v1.21.1 (Ubuntu 1:1.21.0-1ubuntu1) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
(initramfs)"
Did this happen to you as well and/or do you know how to get around it? Also it does not seem as though the installation actually completed because if I try to redo the process I still have the original partitions on the ssd and the installation says that it could not find any OS on the disk.
Extremely frustrating as the hardware seems gorgeous otherwise ...
Thanks
Jakob