Dell G5 Install Prep

#1

Briefly describe your issue below:

Just got a brand new Dell G5 laptop with 32 gigs of ddr4 RAM and a Nvidia 1080 GPU w/ 4gb DDR5 Ram

What do I need to do in order to prepare it for installing parrot?
I have no desire to keep windows 10 is that helps. In fact I bought a 1tb m.2 SSD and a 5tb HDD specifically for installing parrot on this laptop. I can get to the BIOS and I can disable secure boot as well as UFEI boot. However according to the BIOS documentation it says that it will only allow Legacy boot for external devices and not internal devices such as an operating system installed on an internal hard drive. What will I need to do to work around this and get parrot to boot up properly? I also understand that I’m going to need to go through and find all the drivers that Windows has installed and install a Linux version of said drivers once parent has booted I’m prepared for that the issue I have is getting past the no Legacy booting issue.

What version of Parrot are you running? (include version, edition, and architecture)
Security The latest .iso is what I am using
What method did you use to install Parrot? (Debian Standard / Debian GTK / parrot-experimental)

Configured to multiboot with other systems? (yes / no)
NO
If there are any similar issues or solutions, link to them below:
None that I can see feel free to link me however
If there are any error messages or relevant logs, post them below:

If anybody could come up with a check list of what I need to do before install that would be great I’m finding all this very confusing as it’s my first time installing a new OS in quite some time so I’m a little rusty.

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#2

Typically there isnt much preparation involved. But if your BIOS causes you problems there might be a bit of tinkering necessary.

Creating a boot device: https://www.parrotsec.org/docs/getting-started/create-boot-device/
Booting: https://www.parrotsec.org/docs/getting-started/how-to-boot/

If you only want parrot on the system, it wouldnt really matter if you just installed it in legacy, shouldnt really make any difference. But if you disable ‘secure boot’ you should be able to install it in UEFI.

Dont worry about drivers. When you install parrot it will format the drive anyway, removing any windows files. Although you might want to install nvidia drivers when you finish installing.

#3

Hi. Sorry, I am a little bit confused, does your laptop have 5TB HDD and 2x1TB SSD?
Do you want to install parrot on external drive or right in your laptop?

If you wonder to keep dual-boot I recommend you installing Windows 10 first, because windows overwrites EFI partition on install, and install ParrotOS after.

If you want to have only ParrotOS as your main operational system, just follow GTK installer instructions.

GRUB, which is responsible for managing operational systems can be installed on external disk too. I haven’t tried it myself, so I can’t help you much, but I think that’s not that hard to do.

I had a lot of mess with NVIDIA drivers and If you want to be able to use your nvidia card and live without battery leak, you HAVE TO install drivers.My laptop lived around 1.5 - 2 hours with bad drivers, (I have optimus laptop as you, but with nvidia geforce gtx 1050), for some reason linux couldn’t control nvidia driver but POWERED it.

There is a nice guide how to install them properly: Tuto install of bumblebee and drivers, also check my remark at the bottom if you want to fix tearing when you will manage everything with bumblebee.

Don’t be sad if you have troubles with drivers install. Sometimes it’s really hard (I was trying to do it with ubuntu for half a year).

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#4

Its a single 1tb SSHD M.2 drive and a 1 TB HDD with an external 5 TB HDD I mounted to the laptop case I have if that clears it up lol

#5

FORGOT TO ADD THIS
BLESS YOU FOR THE TUTORIAL ON NVIDIA DRIVERS I AM CURRENTLY DEALING WITH THAT HEADACHE AS WE SPEAK. Hopefully this goes well >.< Fingers crossed.

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