Installing operating system without bios

No.

In short, the BIOS is the boot firmware; it's what gets your system started up. Without it, nothing else can run. It's a proprietary program, so if it were possible to just get rid of it, many of us would be doing it. :)

If the BIOS just won't work and you can't repair it, you might have to get a whole new computer, unfortunately. These are the shops you probably want to look at first:

https://minifree.org/
https://shop.libiquity.com/
http://libre.thinkpenguin.com

The first two sell refurbished laptops that have completely libre boot firmware, and they have "respects your freedom" endorsement from the FSF. The third sells new computers that have the standard, proprietary BIOS, but makes sure everything at least works perfectly with Linux-libre.

I'm definitely hitting the right keys. Hitting F2 as phoenix says to. F12 does nothing either (select boot device). Both options take me straight to GRUB.

I'm not sure what a tech guy could do that I haven't already. I've ripped the laptop apart and tried to flash the cmos chip, left batteries out and taken hardware out etc in an attempt to get the BIOS all reset, but to no avail.

Looks like I'm in for a new laptop once Trisquel is no longer functional by my tinkering with it.

There is always the possibility to swap hard disks. I.e. Install Trisquel on a disk and put it in that machine.

You could plug in a spare external keyboard and hit F12 or F2 that way. Your laptop keys might be stuck.

reflash your bios to the latest version. Go to the acer support site and make sure you download the correct flash rom, you will also need to install the recommended Windows version to flash the BIOS. Better don't mess with it and try flashing it from GNU..

It looks like it's the infamous Acer BIOS bug. Disabling UEFI Secure Boot and Enabling Legacy BIOS practically renders the F2 BIOS access key non-functional. The solution is to flash the BIOS and reset Secure Boot. They say it's possible to load the BIOS flash ROM from a FAT32 USB key while pressing Fn+Esc when starting the laptop.

http://www.skeggs.org/?p=42

Appreciate all the help. I'm going to try the fat32usb flash method.

I've found the BIOS software required for my laptop model (4752g) but I'm not sure where to go from here. I've got a usb in fat32 ready to go, but the folder contains many files. Do I just click and drag the entire folder on to the usb?

Here's the zip file, if someone wouldn't mind having a look for me http://global-download.acer.com/GDFiles/BIOS/BIOS/BIOS_Acer_1.24_A_A.zip?acerid=634921025155312677&Step1=NOTEBOOK&Step2=ASPIRE&Step3=ASPIRE%204752G&OS=ALL&LC=en&BC=ACER&SC=...

thanks.