How to properly install Linux on a Lenovo IdeaPad Z500, V580 (and similar) laptop while still being able to boot Windows 8?

Question

linux

I liked the laptop Lenovo IdeaPad Z500 in the maximum configuration (UPD: in the end I bought another model - V580 - but, apparently, this did not affect the essence of the question and answers).
Given that it has UEFI and pre-installed Windows 8, I foresee that there will be problems with installing Linux. I scoured the Internet, found several messages on the forums about how users did something wrong during the installation, and as a result they got a non-working or buggy multiboot. In the forums, the victims were given advice on how to return the system to a working state. But nowhere did I find a step-by-step guide on how to properly install a second Linux system (any distribution, the main thing is that all equipment is 100% supported) on such a machine. And I would like to.
The piquancy is added by the fact that, apparently, they do not issue a backup DVD with Windows 8 with a laptop, and if necessary, recovery should be performed using the proprietary One Key Recovery (OKR) function - you pressed a special button, and a fresh one was restored from the hidden partition on the disk Windows 8. Accordingly, I would not want to lose this functionality either (that is, nailing the recovery partition by accident or intentionally is not worth it).
So I'm asking for help from the community - poke your nose into a sensible guide, please.

Answer 1

Ubuntu and Fedora can install correctly via UEFI.
You need a 64-bit image (32-bit won't boot via UEFI, 32-bit EFI is needed). Prepare partitions for the future system in advance (root, home, swap, at your discretion), you can also during installation, but the partitioners in the installers are quite limited in settings. It is possible from the same Ubuntu/Fedora LiveCD using gparted.
We boot from LiveCD via UEFI (we disable legacy-mode in the BIOS) via boot-menu via f12 (I have a lenovo y500, I think the differences are insignificant). My item is called "EFI CD" approximately (I do not remember exactly).
(If you start the installation in Legacy-mode, then the kernel will not have access to the UEFI settings and will not be able to add a boot item)
We start the installer. When choosing partitions to mount, select root, home, tmp, or whatever you created there.
And the most important thing. It is important. Select the mount point "/boot/efi/" for the EFI partition. lowercase letters. The partition itself contains a single "EFI" directory. Those. paths to bootloaders will look like "/boot/efi/EFI/". Do not confuse.
Basically everything. Then you can continue with the installation. The installer will copy the necessary files for booting to the EFI partition (the shim and grub bootloader signed with the Microsoft key) and write the boot-entry to UEFI itself. The Windows record must not be corrupted. After installation, 2 new entries "Ubuntu" and "ubuntu" will appear in the boot-menu. One for booting via BootSecure (using the shim bootloader, it's signed). Shim will work without SecureBoot, but will swear at the beginning. It's not critical.
Please note that with SecureBoot you will not be able to use proprietary drivers on Linux. Even open ones if you collect them yourself. All drivers must be signed with a key.
If you disable SecureBoot, you can use any modules. But Windows 8 will swear at an incorrectly configured SecureBoot.
Advice: before manipulations, update bios to the latest version.

Answer 2

There was an article on Habré - Loading GNU / Linux without a third-party loader . Maybe she will point you to something interesting.

Answer 3

If GRUB is installed, and it is picked up by UEFI (though I don’t have Windows, but in principle it’s easily done in Archlinux, read http://goo.gl/LCO7Vv ) - it must work for a long time. The main thing is not to overwrite partitions with Windows data.

Answer 4

By the way, I have an OKR8 engineering image to create a recovery image. If you killed partitions, then OKR8 is put first, which creates the necessary partitions. Then Windows is put. When a greeting appears (license agreement and other crap), the laptop is turned off, recover-mode is turned on, and an image of the system is created via the command line (there are no items for creating an image in the graphical interface, only recovery. Subsequent images are created from under the working OKR client system) .
As a result, you will get a working recover-mode, after recovery from which you will receive a freshly installed Windows 8, which will prompt you to enter a name, password, etc. Well, after creating the image, you can reboot in normal mode.
There is a small catch: OKR8 engineering is not so easy to find, I found only the Chinese version (it was almost six months ago, maybe now it’s easier with this). So the installation will have to be done with the divine help of Cthulhu. But after installation, you can change the locale by editing the text file with the settings. Get the regular Russian version. Perhaps you can change the iso image right away, but I have not tried it.

Answer 5

By the way, I tested the button - for some reason it doesn’t work at all when the computer is turned off, if you click on the boot screen before the OS starts, it launches OKR, in Windows it launches Lenovo Solution Center, but I haven’t tried it in Ubuntu yet :)