Bug#1057237: debian-installer: Debian 12 (Bookworm) on Ace Magic T8Plus: Installation Report
Package: debian-installer
Severity: normal
X-Debbugs-Cc: charlescurley@charlescurley.com
Dear Maintainer,
I took delivery of two Ace Magic T8+ computers recently. https://www.acemagic.com/products/t8plus I am bringing one up as a router running Debian 12.2 (Bookworm).
A full hardware probe of the machine is at Linux Hardware. https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=d0bbc73e29 Note that this was run over SSH, so any monitor information is incorrect. However, it does work with an NEC EA244WMi connected directly.
I first used a live CD to test the machine. I then used gparted to shrink the Windows partition to 60 G, giving me 177G for Linux, plenty for this application. I then booted to Windows so that it would do any necessary fixup on its partition.
I then installed using a netinst image (debian-12.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso) on a USB stick, and a second USB stick for my preseed file and some post-installation scripts. All has gone well, with one glitch.
The glitch was that after the installation the T8+ refused to boot to Linux, going directly into Windows. To make the grub bootloader active after installing Linux and GRUB, in the firmware:
During boot, hit escape or delete to get into the firmware.
Security -> Secure Boot -> Enabled
Boot -> UEFI BBS Priorities -> Debian boot option
Save & Exit -> Save Changes and Exit
Note: Memtest86 does not appear to work. I believe this is a problem with Memtest86, per emails on the Debian User list.
Power use: 5 watts when idle, .28 KWH.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 12.2
APT prefers stable-updates
APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 6.1.0-13-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled
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