Samsung Series 5 Ultra 530U3C-A02PT

This is an article about running Gentoo on a Samsung Series 5 Ultra 530U3C-A02PT.
 * Product page (in Portuguese): https://www.samsung.com/pt/consumer/monitor-peripherals-printer/notebook/ultra-portable/NP530U3C-A02PT

Preamble / Special Requirements
The current setup was designed for a working laptop with a focus on performance and security. It features:


 * Optimizations for a Solid State Disk (SSD)
 * Full disk encryption This requirement was dropped due to a lack of performance and increased complexity. May be enabled later by using Full Disk Encryption (dm-crypt/luks) or encrypted home.

SSD Specifications
The SSD is a 120GB Intel® Solid-State Drive 330 Series.


 * Capacity: 120 GB
 * Components:
 * Intel® 25nm NAND Flash Memory
 * Multi-Level Cell (MLC)
 * Form Factor: 2.5-inch
 * Thickness: 9.5 mm
 * Weight: Up to 80 grams
 * SATA 6Gb/s Bandwidth Performance (Iometer Queue Depth 32)
 * Sustained Sequential Read: 500 MB/s
 * Sustained Sequential Write: 450 MB/
 * Read and Write IOPS1(Iometer Queue Depth 32)
 * Random 4 KB Reads: 42,000 IOPS
 * Random 4 KB Writes: 52,000 IOPS
 * Compatibility
 * Intel® SSD Toolbox with Intel® SSD Optimizer
 * Intel® Data Migration Software
 * Intel® Rapid Storage Technology
 * Intel® 6 Series Express Chipsets (with SATA 6Gb/s)
 * SATA Revision 3.0
 * ACS-2 (ATA/ATAPI Command Set 2)
 * Limited SMART ATA feature set
 * Native Command Queuing (NCQ) command set
 * Data Set Management Command Trim attribute
 * Power Management
 * 5 V SATA Supply Rail— SATA Link Power Management (LPM)
 * Power
 * Active (MobileMark* 2007 Workload): 850 mW (TYP)
 * Idle: 600 mW (TYP)
 * Temperature
 * Operating: 0o C to 70o C
 * Non-Operating: -55o C to 95o C

Booting the CD USB
This laptop doesn't include a CDROM drive so you must either install a LiveCD into a USB thumb drive (LiveUSB) or borrow an external CDROM drive. If you opt to use a USB stick SystemRescueCD has a guide about creating a LiveUSB.

Now plug your LiveUSB, change BIOS boot order by pressing F2 and follow the instructions in the Gentoo Linux AMD64 Handbook. Come back to this guide when configuring the kernel or adjusting.

Partitioning
Some remarks before launching GParted:
 * I've replaced the original Hitachi 500GB HDD with a 120GB SSD.
 * This laptop is bundled with an internal 24GB SanDisk SSD ExpressCache. ExpressCache is a software layer that caches HDD reads/writes with a small SSD boosting the OS (Windows 7) performance.
 * I'll be using the HDD connected via USB when emerging packages because that's where  and   will reside.

Partition Alignment for SSD
You may already notice all the fuss around [how important is to properly align SSD partitions. To achieve this the simply answer is: use a tool like GParted and select MiB alignment to start and end on precise mebibyte (1,048,576 byte) boundaries. Yan Li's Easy way to align Linux partitions for SSD and myths debunked corroborates the GParted statement.

Partitioning Scheme
Using the setup above we now have the following disk identifiers.
 * sda - Intel 120GB SSD
 * sdb - SanDisk 24GB SSD (ExpressCache)
 * sdc - Hitachi 500GB HDD

Kernel configuration
First install kernel sources of your liking. I'm using reliable.

Xorg
Simple as: