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I wish to make an 'Omen X by HP S2' (a 15" HP laptop with NVIDIA RTX graphics) dual boot or Ubuntu only, and in the BIOS/UEFI I cannot disable RST or switch it off. I contacted HP and they also said it is not possible - I guess they have a deal with Intel and do not allow disabling any more.

I've tried Ubuntu versions back to 14 LTS as well as the latest 22 LTS, but all of them complained about the RST and wouldn't allow me to install Ubuntu. This unfortunately makes this pricey bit of kit a Windows-only box.

Since it already exists for several years, can Ubuntu please support RST?

Edit: When searching for possible solutions, I also found posts from people who have both RST and non-RST storage on a computer and because RST is found on that system the Ubuntu installer stops and also does not allow you to install it on non-RST storage. Please support RST, whether we like it or not, many devices have it and on some it cannot be disabled - preventing the device owner to install Ubuntu.

wlamee
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  • Intel has these Windows apps for RST, not sure where else they are available Google found them in Intel site also. DELL app removal (setuprst.exe and setupoptanememory.exe - both from Dell Have you updated UEFI firmware. That may add settings. If SSD also update firmware. Since newer computer you will need newest Ubuntu to have latest kernel & drivers. And obsolete versions that are end of life would not work at all. – oldfred Jun 28 '22 at 13:58
  • @oldfred: The laptop is on the latest BIOS, and have (as stated in my original post) also tried the latest Ubuntu 22 LTS (released April 2022), which also stops installing as soon as it detects RST. – wlamee Jun 28 '22 at 14:36
  • It also looks like you need a newer kernel than default in 22.04. Drivers are missing, but third party created some. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=HP-OMEN-Linux-5.16 – oldfred Jun 28 '22 at 18:44
  • @oldfred: I read through just about every page I found there, there does not seem to be any RST support in there yet (also no mention of RST on the latest daily build on [Ubuntu 22.10 (Kinetic Kudu) Daily Build](http://www.cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/) or the link [pdx86's "for-next" branch](https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/pdx86/platform-drivers-x86.git/commit/?h=for-next&id=4c51ba9af42dff0ef6a2ca3edcefa76f3466959e) mentioned on the page you provided) – wlamee Jun 29 '22 at 14:04
  • Did you try the Intel .exe Windows tools? I also have seen where users just remove the RST module and replace with standard NVMe drive. Not sure if RST part of main drive or separate, but typically it is just 16 or 32GB. – oldfred Jun 29 '22 at 15:46
  • @oldfred: Which 'Intel .exe Windows tools' would those be and what should I do with them? – wlamee Jun 29 '22 at 21:40
  • See first comment. I found them on an Intel site with Google. But my old notes said they were on a Dell site also. Never used them so do not know details. – oldfred Jun 30 '22 at 03:43
  • @oldfred: I have also tried that longer ago and just tried again, that also does not allow removal / uninstall of the RST functionality. And Intel has now marked the RST application as End of Life, I see. – wlamee Jun 30 '22 at 09:55
  • Then the only option may be to remove the RST drive. Is it part of your larger drive, or just a separate module. Not familiar with RST drives. I have installed NVMe drive and that was easy to install, but not always easy to access where it is. – oldfred Jun 30 '22 at 13:51
  • Drives (or more accurately 'storage devices', because 'drives' implies spinning disks) are not 'RST drives', Intel just made a proprietary RAID driver (with a few added bells & whistles to make people want it), called it Intel RST and integrated it in their chipsets. Then they probably pushed for PC manufacturers to put that in as a BIOS/UEFI option and later as the only option. But storage is just storage. – wlamee Jul 01 '22 at 14:50

2 Answers2

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You can easily install Ubuntu with enabled RST in BIOS. I did it many times.

Linux and Ubuntu support RST RAIDS, but there are problems with grub, that can't without some hacks.

A problem arised when you want a dual boot with Windows that is installed with some RAID config. In this case it is not straight forward.

You have some options:

  1. If you are OK with Ubuntu only installation then you can use Gparted to wipe the disk completely, create a new GPT partition table. Then I don't expect any problems with Ubuntu installation.

  2. You can re-install Windows without using any RAID. I am not a Waindows expert and can't give details. But there should be a way of doing that. Then you should be able to install Ubuntu as another system.

  3. I met some ways even at this site when people succeeded to install and boot Ubuntu from a Windows RST RAID. But this depends on how Windows is installed and it is not guaranteed that it works in all cases.

The bottom line is that RST is not a problem for a single Ubuntu.

Pilot6
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  • The HP Omen laptop does not have a RAID setup in BIOS (both NVM SSDs are not in a RAID setup), but as I said in my original post 'in the BIOS/UEFI I cannot disable RST'. The HP Omen BIOS does not have another option beside RST, and under the RST the two NVM SSDs are not set up as RAID and this visible in Windows as separate devices. I will try the Gparted -> GPT option, see if that has any effect. – wlamee Jun 28 '22 at 14:41
  • Maybe BIOS is not showing the RAID, but still Windows may be installed some unconventional way. What happens if you ignore the Ubuntu installer warning and go ahead installing Ubuntu? Does it see the storage? – Pilot6 Jun 28 '22 at 14:44
  • I wiped everything and installed Windows on a partition about half the size of one of the two NVM SSDs, so I hope that's not messing things up. And for the Ubuntu installer it's not a warning, it's a no-go. It puts up a 'Turn off RST' window with a QR code and some text referring to https://help.ubuntu.com/rst and three buttons 'Quit'. 'Back' and 'Restart'. There does not seem to be an option to ignore and continue the installer. – wlamee Jun 28 '22 at 15:00
  • What if you reset BIOS to default and clear the Windows UEFI entry? – Pilot6 Jun 28 '22 at 15:05
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    And I just tried Gparted (the latest live image 1.4.0-1 from gparted.org), and it doesn't even see the two internal 1TB NVM SSD devices, only the stick I put Gparted on. If I boot the laptop in Windows, it sees the two 1TB devices and it's 500GB NTFS partition with Windows on one of them. And according to Microsoft's disk management, both of the NVM SSDs are GPT partitioned. – wlamee Jun 28 '22 at 15:51
  • That's a bad case. I never met this kind of setup. There may be some setting in BIOS, but it is not guaranteed. – Pilot6 Jun 28 '22 at 15:57
  • Maybe there are hidden advances BIOS options, maybe not. – Pilot6 Jun 28 '22 at 16:06
  • See ths https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-System-and-Recovery/How-do-I-disable-RST-Rapid-Storage-Technology/td-p/8339484 – Pilot6 Jun 28 '22 at 16:08
  • @Pilo6: In this BIOS there is only the possibility to reset the system security to factory defaults. – wlamee Jun 29 '22 at 15:18
  • The HP link you provided doesn't add any value: User asks how to disable RST on an HP laptop, support explains how to do it in BIOS, otherwise 'contact HP support' – wlamee Jun 29 '22 at 15:21
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I just recently found that Garuda Linux installs on HP Omen x 2s without any problems. I have tried several other distros without success and had already given up. My guess is that the kernel it uses (zen-kernel) has RST support. The problem previously was that my NVME drives were not visible on any linux installer.

I am finally able to dual boot between Windows and Linux. I haven't however been able to get the touch screen working properly yet.

Aleksi
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