LINUX NOOB, DEFIANCE II.... any help?

[Glenquoich]

After a few delays due to ill health I am now about to set up my new Defiance II that arrived in November last year.

Spec: 15.6" Matte 3K IPS;
Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 6700HQ;
32GB KINGSTON HYPER-X IMPACT 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (4 x 8GB);
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 970M;
mSATA/M.2 512GB SAMSUNG SM951 M.2, PCIe NVMe;
500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD;
250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD;
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND;
Intel 2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + SoundBlaster X-Fi MB3;
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8260 M.2.

My plan is to run Windows 10 (64 bit) Professional on the NVMe drive alongside my DAW, Samples and VST plug ins for music creation/mixing only and use the 500GB Samsung SSD for storing music files. No other software or functions are planned for this part of my laptop.
I hope to use a linux distro on my 250GB Samsung SSD and my everyday web/email/office can be used on this. I would like to dual boot between the 2 Operating Systems.
The problem is I am a complete newbie to linux and I appreciate that I am at the bottom of a very steep learning curve but I am very willing to learn.
I am unsure of what distro to start with and what distro would suit my needs best, as well as what distro suits my new pc best.
A few pointers on drivers etc would also be appreciated, as well as some links to sites and blogs for info.
Thanks in advance to anyone willing to pitch in and help.

Glenquoich.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I'm afraid I can't help with the linux installation, but just wanted to wish you well after your ill-health, and what a project to start on back in recovery eh?

Hope it goes well, there are various Linux pro's on the forum who I'm sure will be along to help.

 

[Mnemonic]

Hi Glenquoich. You're right, the learning curve is quite steep for someone new to Linux. Not only this, but some of the Defiance II hardware (I think it's the Intel GPU) isn't 100% supported by Linux (yet). I bought a Defiance II with similar specs to yours, only I opted for a full HD display instead and only have a single SSD drive (the Samsung Evo 500GB).

I have written up some instructions in this forum on how to install Ubuntu 15.10 on the Defiance II, but this was only for a Defiance II with a single HDD. I'm not sure how compatible Linux is with the M.2 drives. The steps would be fairly similar, but you'd have to make sure you have everything on your Windows drive backed up, as you do run the risk of wiping everything out. Also, you run the risk of making your laptop "un-bootable" (which can be extremely difficult to fix if you're new to Linux). Be prepared to go through the process of re-installing Windows again (I had to do this many times when I was first messing around with Linux).

My recommendations:

1. Go with Ubuntu 15.10, it's a newbie friendly distro.
2. Physically remove your NVMe drive (so you don't wipe out your Windows install).
3. Once your NVMe drive is removed, mess around with installing Linux on your Samsung Evo SSD first.

Alternatively, you could try out Ubuntu 15.10 (or any other distro, for that matter) by installing VirtualBox and then creating/installing a Ubuntu 15.10 virtual machine.

There are plenty of good tutorials and step-by-step instructions on the Interwebs, such as this one: http://ivanblagojevic.com/how-to-install-ubuntu-14-04-lts-on-an-empty-hard-disk-tutorial/. The one thing you have to do if installing Linux on the Defiance II is to change the graphics mode to "DISCRETE" in the BIOS. Alternatively, you can set the i915.preliminary_hw_support=1 in GRUB, but I cannot remember how to do this right now (you basically have to push some key while the installer is loading, go in to a particular option, find a line in a text file, add i915.preliminary_hw_support=1 to it, then exit/boot).

Search around on the Internet, I'm sure there'll be a more specific write-up someone explaining how to do what you want to do. Hopefully someone in these forums may be able to shed some light on what you're trying to achieve. I've just never had two HDDs in a laptop before (especially not an NVMe drive), so I can't help you much I'm afraid.

This post might be useful: http://askubuntu.com/questions/629750/installing-ubuntu-on-second-hard-drive

Good luck!

 

[Glenquoich]

Thanks.
I see by the tech you have listed you must do a bit of music yourself.
I'm looking forward to getting back into the creative side again (I will be using nuendo and reason). I will be using the windows part as a music only pc (the NVMe drive for W10 software and samples; 500GB SSD for storage but I will always back up to an external drive). I have quite a lot of writing to do for an album later in the year, hopefully this pc will be up to the task.

 

[Glenquoich]

@Mneumonic. Thanks I'll check out the links you gave me. I have a tech friend helping me next week with the dual boot but with linux, I suppose I'll be on my own most of the time. I have been told Mint would be a good distro to start with. Any caveats regarding Mint?