Introduction

Installation of Linux (Kubuntu 24.04) on the Acer Aspire E15 was quite annoying.

Usual installation resulted in a No bootable device message during boot.

Laptop

Key Value
Manufacturer Acer
Model Aspire E15
Modelnumber E5-574G-56U6
SNID 60303163175
  • The original internal 1TB HDD was replaced with a 500GB SSD.

HowTo

  • Prepare a bootable USB stick with Linux distribution of choice (in my case I used Kubuntu 24.04)
  • Make sure the SSD is has a GPT partition table (use LiveBoot if not and adapt) (Not sure whether the flags ?boot? and grub_? are required.)
  • In BIOS (press F2 during start)
    • Set an administrator password under Security > Set Supervisor Password (so that more settings can be adjusted)
    • Optional: Under Security select Erase all Secure Boot Settings
    • Disable Secure Boot (but keep Boot Mode: UEFI)
    • Make sure Main > F12 Boot Menu is enabled so that booting from external devices using F12 is possible
  • Reboot and interrupt boot using F12
  • Select the prepared Linux boot stick and go through the installation procedure. (Make sure you see GPT in the disc setup interface)
  • After the installation boot to BIOS (pressing F2)
  • Enable Secure Boot again
  • Under Security > Select an UEFI file as trusted for executing select HDD0 > EFI > UBUNTU > shimx64.efi (not sure if the others also work)
  • Booting to the new system should now be possible

More info

Much of the description is derived from the Acer Forum where also a side-by-side installation with Windows is described.