Acer V3 Aspire 574 Running Ubuntu 14.04

Just a note for anyone who may be considering buying an Acer v3 Aspire 574 and running Ubuntu on it.

It Works!!

It took a little bit of doing, had to jump through some hoops but finally got it working. I decided to keep the Windows 8.1 install as I'm not much of a data hog and had 500GB spare for Ubuntu.

I followed these recommended steps

  1. Back up Windows. ...
  2. Create a bootable Ubuntu USB drive. ...
  3. Shrink your Windows partition. ...
  4. Turn off fast boot. ...
  5. Turn off secure boot. ...
  6. Install Ubuntu. ...
  7. Boot Repair. ...
  8. Fix the boot loader.

I had a suprise after completing the Ubuntu install, on restart it rebooted directly into Windows no grub. Followed the steps here to resolve.

Once I could boot into Ubuntu there were no wireless networks detected. Followed directions here and it was sorted.

No issues to report, sound, webcam, touchpad, keyboard and usb all good. It's been a lot smoother than my previous laptop, a sony vaio (6 years ago), I had to wait a few months for the sound drivers to be made available!

Hope this helps someone looking to take the plunge. Hopefully the day will come when it is easier to source laptops with pre installs or just no OS. Wasn't an option in my case. I did consider PC Specialist or System76 but ended up going for the Acer.