Inspiron 7490 BIOS: How to turn off intel 'RAID on', and swith disk mode to AHCI?

Hi everyone,

This is just a thankful testimony and big kudo to @Nuliel. Not only did he find a long term solution (the laptop had some annoying bugs in the end), but he shares it here too. Thumbs up !

Yesterday the page goes from draft to production, that's why the link changed. New link is https://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/inspiron_7490 but I can't modify my last post, how can I modify it?

The listed commands are to be run In Cubic's virtual window instead of Nuliels' set.

Sorry for not including that detail

Awesome work and thank you!

I ran into some snags running it and had a convo with Cubic PPA (cubic-wizard) who provided this :

=====================================

Here are the correct instructions (just four simple commands):

    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
wget -q https://deb.endlessos.org/keys/eos-pub-archive-key.asc -O- | apt-key add -
echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://deb.endlessos.org/debian master endless" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/endlessOS.list
apt update
apt install linux-headers-generic/master linux-image-generic/master

    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On the Kernel tab of Cubic's Options page, be sure to select the newer kernel you just installed (5.11.0-19).

=========================

It allowed me to get an installation on disk, but a new problem emerged:

"The 'grub-efi-amd64-signed' package failed to install into /target/. Without the GRUB boot loader, the installed system will not Boot."
And on exiting the installer crashed.
I used all the defaults and minimum install, ran the install with fast boot off and secure boot off. (I am dual-booting with windows)

It looks like a bug. Has anybody else had this problem? How did you fix it?

So close and yet so far!

Link to the CUBIC conversation:

https://answers.launchpad.net/cubic/+question/697981

This worked, easily! (I include Nuliel's great work from above to make a complete (i hope) instruction set all in one place. The primary difference is the code entered in Cubic's console (thanks for the help Nuliel and Cubic people!)

Use a separate Linux system to make the custom ISO

1. Generation of iso

First download an iso that you want to modify (I used ubuntu-20.04.2.0-desktop-amd64.iso).

Then you can install the PPA of cubic with:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:cubic-wizard/release
sudo apt update
sudo apt install cubic

Then open cubic, it will ask you to define a working folder and the iso file downloaded before.

Continue, you will obtain a console.

Then use the code below:

apt update

apt install grub-efi-amd64-signed

wget -q https://deb.endlessos.org/keys/eos-pub-archive-key.asc -O- | apt-key add -

echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://deb.endlessos.org/debian master endless" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/endlessOS.list

apt update

apt install linux-headers-generic/master linux-image-generic/master

rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/endlessOS.list

apt update

You can continue with default parameters (just choose the kernel that has been installed, not the old one!), and it will generate a modified iso compatible with Dell Inspiron 9490!

You can burn this iso on a usb key. You just have to pay attention that you utility to burn the iso file must create a UEFI compatible usb key (that's the case with Etcher but many others utilities will do the same)

2. Prepare windows

Boot the Dell Inspiron 7490 on windows, and first disable fast startup (you can follow for example https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disable-windows-10-fast-startup )

NOTE: I made the new partition during the Ubuntu install.

That's all for windows.

3. BIOS configuration

Go in the BIOS and disable Secure Boot, this is useful to install nvidia driver.

4. Install Ubuntu or variant

Now you can insert your usb key and boot on it (it's F12 to choose the usb key)

Please don't do updates during installation but after installation, I think it would be better.

Notice that if you do a manual partitionning, you must install GRUB in EFI partition (remember that this laptop is only compatible with UEFI)

Install!

@settle  Amazing work !! Thanks a lot for sharing. I just want to confirm if this will let me Dual boot both Windows and Ubuntu?

Why did you remove the part about the kernel repo? It looks very much like this will work until you have ubuntu update the kernel and then it will refus

I have just successfully installed. Three things to note regarding @settle 's instructions above:

1. I did a few thing but I'm pretty sure I had to disable secure boot to get it to work. That also meant I had to turn off bitlocker on my Windows C drive, which took about 3 hours to decrypt my 1TB C.

2. I *did* keep the 
```

cat > /etc/apt/preferences.d/endlessOS.pref << EOF
Package: *
Pin: origin "deb.endlessos.org"
Pin-Priority: 1

Package: linux-image-generic, linux-headers-generic
Pin: origin "deb.endlessos.org"
Pin-Priority: 1000
EOF

```

Which I think is probably safer, so you don't get the system installing a vanilla ubuntu kernel.

3. I was unable to get Virtualbox with DKMS modules to install/build. There are various other virtualisation options but this will likely require some extra foo to get working.

Otherwise, speedy and nice! I will also try to disable the discrete nvidia card to try and get the temperature down, though it's obviously very annoying to have a card that can't be used because of overheating...

These are good points, and thank you for bringing them up. I don't know the reasoning for that part of the code change; it was passed on to me by Cubic that way. I guess i'll find out at update time! Let's keep this thread alive and bring in any other considerations as they occur.

Also succesfully prepared an Ubuntu_20.04.iso and installed it just as Nuliel described so extremely nicely!! With great addition of Settle about "apt install grub-efi-amd64-signed" and "apt update". So basically just as AntonOfTheWoods mentioned. Am so happy now! So convenient to be able to use customizable Grub bootloader instead of SuperGrub! And even we will receive kernel updates now. Oe yo

By the way, I first tried preparing an Ubuntu_21.04.iso but there I got this error:

root@cubic:~# wget -q https://deb.endlessos.org/keys/eos-pub-archive-key.asc -O- | apt-key add -

E: gnupg, gnupg2 and gnupg1 do not seem to be installed, but one of them is required for this operation

Hi and thanks to all for bringing this together. I too have linux installed (Kubuntu 20.04) thanks to the instructions on this thread.

O have a question in relation to the Nvidia card. I have switched to the Nvidia 470 driver.. do I need to disable the card though? The fans are coming on and off.

How do I disable the card so its using the indel hardware? Its disappointing to have to do that to avoid overheating, but my use case in linux is such that I can live without the Nvidia hardware to have a better experience. Thanks.

A warning to others, I don't know why yet but updates to the kernel do NOT boot. That means that I can only currently use the first kernel that was installed. That means security updates are not getting used, and eventually the package manager will remove it. So this is a pretty substandard solution until a way is found to have kernels that can update.

For anyone who wants to run OpenCore or Linux, I have put together this repository to summarize my findings.

https://github.com/foremind/Dell-Inspiron-7490-OpenCore

I hope you guys can help solve the remaining minor problems.

Hello, I see you are looking for technical assistance. If you need our help, you can start a private/direct message with us and we will be happy to assist you.