Bought an Octane II just before Christmas with the following spec:
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/octaneII-15/0TjNIsBYf3/
I had hoped to be trying out the new Mint 17.3 KDE on it but server problems delayed that release until January, so 17.2 will have to do.
As is usual with Linux and new hardware some stuff worked and some stuff didn’t.
I’ve got most of it working now and am posting here in case anyone else finds it useful.
In my case I found booting with UEFI to be a no go. SUSE was on the only distro I could get to boot properly with UEFI on, but I really wanted Mint so I did the install without UEFI. The result is that UEFI on boots to Windows and UEFI off boots to Mint.
In my setup one M2 drive is for Windows and the other for Mint. Mint’s default install options don’t seem to recognise the M2 drives, but doing it by choosing ‘manual’ is easy enough to do. Two partions, one for root and the other a 50Gb for Swap (yeah, yeah, I know this is way too much). And yes, no /home partition despite how all the guides recommend it.
Install went smoothly, and now is the lovely job of getting the hardware working properly.
1) Killer 1535 wireless
The Killer website itself has the firmware you need:
http://www.killernetworking.com/sup.../20-killer-wireless-ac-in-linux-ubuntu-debian
If you have 4.0 or later kernel you just plonk in the files into the right firmware folder and you’re done. If you have an earlier kernel (Mint 17.2 default is 3.16) you’ll need to do a backport.
I didn’t want to do a backport, but I couldn’t upgrade to a newer Mint-approved kernel without an internet connection. So what I did was temporarily install a new kernel. I used this link to download the needed kernel files:
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.2.8-wily/
In my case the files I needed were these ones:
linux-headers-4.2.8-040208-generic_4.2.8-040208.201512150620_amd64.deb
linux-headers-4.2.8-040208_4.2.8-040208.201512150620_all.deb
linux-image-4.2.8-040208-generic_4.2.8-040208.201512150620_amd64.deb
And then install by navigating to the right directory and running
After reboot and working internet I used Mint’s own installer to get the latest Mint-approved kernel (4.2.2), booted into it and then uninstalled the 4.2.8 one from earlier.
2) Nvidia drivers
KDE seems to have trouble when it comes to installing these. Mint provides a driver manager which seems to work well in their Cinnamon and Mate editions, but I don’t remember it ever working smoothly with KDE. Mint tries to use version 352 of the Nvidia drivers but they don’t take, so I downloaded the same version directly from the Nvidia site.
In order to run the Nvidia installer the X-server can’t be running. Easiest way I know to do this is to edit your grub file so it has this:
I tend to remove the ‘quiet splash’ options because I like to see if there are any hold ups in the boot sequence (eg: fstab config throwing a wobbly). Ran update-grub2, rebooted, ran the Nvidia installer, changed grub back to normal and rebooted one last time.
The difficulty that the Mint manager has with KDE is that the install process doesn’t seem to properly disable the Nouveau driver. It seems to be a known problem without any easy solution. In any case, I had be display drivers now working (the HDMI connection now worked – I think HDMI-CEC, which is a protocol to allow a laptop remote to control an external television, plays havoc with the Nouveau driver for some reason).
3) Sound & External CD/DVD drive
Worked out of the box. Need to get the HDMI audio working the way I want. You can choose the device with a program like VLC and that works, but I’d like to be able to run everything through it when plugged in.
A random aside, this is the first system I’ve ever seen that didn’t need Pulseaudio yanked from it to solve audio crackling. Probably the extra CPU juice.
4) Things still to be sorted
Ethernet still isn’t working. Can’t change the keyboard backlights. Haven’t figured out how to change the post screen logo (sorry PCS, but it has to go).
On the plus side I got my old copy of Thief 2 to work under wine, something I haven’t been able to do with Windows 7, 8 or 10.
All in all the compatibility wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. The UEFI seemed to be a complete non-starter in most distros I tried. Even my grub boot repair disc wouldn’t boot in UEFI which really surprised me. But non-UEFI is a working option and I can live with enabling/disabling it to switch back to Windows for gaming.
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/octaneII-15/0TjNIsBYf3/
I had hoped to be trying out the new Mint 17.3 KDE on it but server problems delayed that release until January, so 17.2 will have to do.
As is usual with Linux and new hardware some stuff worked and some stuff didn’t.
I’ve got most of it working now and am posting here in case anyone else finds it useful.
In my case I found booting with UEFI to be a no go. SUSE was on the only distro I could get to boot properly with UEFI on, but I really wanted Mint so I did the install without UEFI. The result is that UEFI on boots to Windows and UEFI off boots to Mint.
In my setup one M2 drive is for Windows and the other for Mint. Mint’s default install options don’t seem to recognise the M2 drives, but doing it by choosing ‘manual’ is easy enough to do. Two partions, one for root and the other a 50Gb for Swap (yeah, yeah, I know this is way too much). And yes, no /home partition despite how all the guides recommend it.
Install went smoothly, and now is the lovely job of getting the hardware working properly.
1) Killer 1535 wireless
The Killer website itself has the firmware you need:
http://www.killernetworking.com/sup.../20-killer-wireless-ac-in-linux-ubuntu-debian
If you have 4.0 or later kernel you just plonk in the files into the right firmware folder and you’re done. If you have an earlier kernel (Mint 17.2 default is 3.16) you’ll need to do a backport.
I didn’t want to do a backport, but I couldn’t upgrade to a newer Mint-approved kernel without an internet connection. So what I did was temporarily install a new kernel. I used this link to download the needed kernel files:
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.2.8-wily/
In my case the files I needed were these ones:
linux-headers-4.2.8-040208-generic_4.2.8-040208.201512150620_amd64.deb
linux-headers-4.2.8-040208_4.2.8-040208.201512150620_all.deb
linux-image-4.2.8-040208-generic_4.2.8-040208.201512150620_amd64.deb
And then install by navigating to the right directory and running
Code:
dpkg -i linux-headers-4*.deb linux-image-4*.debAfter reboot and working internet I used Mint’s own installer to get the latest Mint-approved kernel (4.2.2), booted into it and then uninstalled the 4.2.8 one from earlier.
2) Nvidia drivers
KDE seems to have trouble when it comes to installing these. Mint provides a driver manager which seems to work well in their Cinnamon and Mate editions, but I don’t remember it ever working smoothly with KDE. Mint tries to use version 352 of the Nvidia drivers but they don’t take, so I downloaded the same version directly from the Nvidia site.
In order to run the Nvidia installer the X-server can’t be running. Easiest way I know to do this is to edit your grub file so it has this:
Code:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text"I tend to remove the ‘quiet splash’ options because I like to see if there are any hold ups in the boot sequence (eg: fstab config throwing a wobbly). Ran update-grub2, rebooted, ran the Nvidia installer, changed grub back to normal and rebooted one last time.
The difficulty that the Mint manager has with KDE is that the install process doesn’t seem to properly disable the Nouveau driver. It seems to be a known problem without any easy solution. In any case, I had be display drivers now working (the HDMI connection now worked – I think HDMI-CEC, which is a protocol to allow a laptop remote to control an external television, plays havoc with the Nouveau driver for some reason).
3) Sound & External CD/DVD drive
Worked out of the box. Need to get the HDMI audio working the way I want. You can choose the device with a program like VLC and that works, but I’d like to be able to run everything through it when plugged in.
A random aside, this is the first system I’ve ever seen that didn’t need Pulseaudio yanked from it to solve audio crackling. Probably the extra CPU juice.
4) Things still to be sorted
Ethernet still isn’t working. Can’t change the keyboard backlights. Haven’t figured out how to change the post screen logo (sorry PCS, but it has to go).
On the plus side I got my old copy of Thief 2 to work under wine, something I haven’t been able to do with Windows 7, 8 or 10.
All in all the compatibility wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. The UEFI seemed to be a complete non-starter in most distros I tried. Even my grub boot repair disc wouldn’t boot in UEFI which really surprised me. But non-UEFI is a working option and I can live with enabling/disabling it to switch back to Windows for gaming.
