Rarely do I encounter a problem I can't resolve eventually with Linux but this one has got me. I have an Acer ES1-111m which has a 32GB eMMC drive. I have tried various distributions running various versions of the kernel and nothing seems to like the eMMC. Some distros just can't see it, some will see it but do nothing with it and some try but fail miserably and get errors.
Distros tried include Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, Manjaro and Mint. Manjaro has been the most promising which makes me think I should just try Arch.
Any ideas how I can get some version of Linux installed? I'm open to pretty much anything.
Linux generally doesn't like to install to sd cards. Arch might be your best bet. You can also try other lightweight distros like puppy linux or dsl. Knoppix might also be a thing.
Another vote for Arch here. With Arch you can do everything yourself - which also means you have to do everything yourself. I think it should be possible - I only ever installed Arch onto a USB-Stick.
Bit of an interesting soluation here but I have had no troubles installing Ubuntu-based distros onto USB flash drives so if you have a 32GB flash drive installing Ubuntu to it and then boot off your Live USB flash drive and "Create Disk Image" of that flash drive, then "Write Disk Image" to your eMMC storage.
To sun that up in steps:
Install Ubuntu to a 32GB Flash Drive as if it were a HDD.
Reboot and go back into your live Envrioment (not the install).
Open 'Disks' from the launcher.
Click 'Create Disk Image' on the Flash Drive.
Place the Disk Image on an external HDD, we'll need this later.
Go to your eMMC storage in Disks and click 'Write Disk Image'.
Select the Disk Image we prepeared earlier.
Shut down and remove Flash Drive + Install/Live Media
I tried something similar to this but the USB that I installed the OS to refused to boot. I did it properly and created a FAT32 efi boot partition and it would get to the loading screen of the OS and then freeze.
Nope, done this also. Can you see why I am at such a loss? I'll try again, though. I have completely wiped the eMMC so maybe a clean disk might make something work.
I had the exact same laptop with the same plan and ran into this, it had a messed up screen though so I returned it before trying to install and chose to not get a replacement because it seemed like hassle.
I think your problems might be to do with the 'RPMB' partition (replay protected memory block) which I believe is basiically a write only undeletable partition that holds the microsoft DRM for windows 8.1 with bing. See bottom of this page here https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acer_Aspire_ES1-111M
When booting a live distro from usb (manjaro) I saw that it took a very long time to load (2-5mins) which was also due to this partition I think, it keeps trying to read it but gets stuck then eventually skips it, but when installing this causes it to fail. I think you might need to use a patched kernel, as linked in the arch wiki link. It's an issue common with a lot of windows 8.1 with bing emmc laptops so there may be more progress on it since I last looked at it.
If you can make a bootable flash drive it might work out but you may have to do something to stop it trying to read that partition in normal use.
I'm going to have to follow this guide and see. Looks like I'm taking the plunge with Arch. Amazingly I'm actually going to make the Arch installation even harder. Potentially I could run a live USB with a persistent partition, but that really isn't secure. I have found this with Kali - http://docs.kali.org/downloading/kali-linux-live-usb-persistence I will persist, however. It will not be long before someone gets past this eMMC Windows 8.1 with Bing bollocks considering the vast number of devices that are out there now. Getting genuinely tempted to solder on a SATA header to the motherboard and put in a proper SSD. As far as I'm aware that should be possible.