Dual boot windows 10 and Elementary OS.

I am running E/OS in VMWARE now. I have a new 2tb sshd ordered and will be here next week. I want to put E/OS on a 500gb partition and keep my windows 10 on 1.5tb partition.

Where can I find the steps to do this correctly, and will E/OS run faster than running through VM ware?

 

anyone have some information on this?

 

It is straightforward like installing ubuntu. Just put the iso on a usb using rufus (you can use the portable version) and boot from usb using BIOS. Then follow the setup.

Important thing before starting the installation is to check whether the harddisk is GPT or MBR. If you have UEFI firmware, I recommend converting to GPT as it has better resilience to corruption and supports up to 128 primary partitions. You can do that in Windows using disk management. Just right click on the new harddisk and convert to GPT. If you have convert to MBR, then it is already GPT.



Another important thing is to disable fastboot in BIOS. This is for UEFI firmware only.

After finishing the installation, you will have a grub2 boot option in BIOS. It will have entries for E/OS and Windows automatically set up for you. After that you have to update everything using apt-get update && apt-get upgrade. Then check if you have any hardware issues. If you have any issues, try installing linux-firmware and linux-image-4.x.x-yy-extras where 4.x.x-yy is your current linux kernel. If you still have hardware issues, then you have to check online for a driver to that hardware component.

It is not clear from your post whether you need help in setting up a specific partition scheme. You need to post how much RAM you have in the PC and whether or not you need to hibernate. If this is your first time running dual boot, I can write you a quick guide.

 

Ok, thanks for the information. I have 16 gb ram with 2tb SSHD. I have 500gb partitioned as my Windows OS, I was planning on partitioning 250gb for my ElementaryOS OS, and leave the rest for file storage. I have never run dual boot before. I know my computer is UEFI right now. After it's all set up.....when the computer starts I can select what OS I want to use correct?

 

Why GRUB under UEFI? The firmware already support multiple boot entries.

 

My system had a peculiarity. It is not tru UEFI but in bios is is UEFI compatible. With this enabled installing Mint 18.1 grub installed the UEFI version boot loadr3er and then the Windows 7 install was not listed asqa boot option. I had to redo the MBR and get mint and grub installed without the UEFI compatibility mode enabled. Once installed I re-enabled the mode in BIOS.

 

There is swap in Linux which is similar to pagefile in Windows. Unlike Windows, you need to create a separate partition for swap. 16GB is a lot of ram and you will most likely not need more memory for software.

However, swap is used for hibernate, so you need to store all used ram memory in the swap partition during hibernate. You will need amount of used ram + 2GB. The extra 2GB is a buffer, otherwise hibernate will be very slow. So up to 18GB of swap might be needed. Otherwise 1GB or no swap parititon.

You have multiple ways to boot two OS in one harddisk in UEFI. You can use the BIOS. You can press the shortcut (F7 for boot option (might not be available for all laptop) to quickly choose to boot using a specific partition. Or you can use GRUB (default for most linux distros) or 3rd party bootloader which is what you want.

Now the general steps you need:

1. Make sure harddisk is GPT not MBR.

2. Disable fastboot and CSM from BIOS.

3. Install Windows 10 setting 1500GB for the OS partition during installation (I would split into two partitions on HDD but it is up to you). After installation, there will be 3+ partitions for Windows (one 1500GB partition and a couple small partitions each less than 1GB for boot and recovery).

4. Use rufus to install the Elementary OS iso into a usb. There is a cd icon in rufus to browse and choose the iso. Keep the defaut settings.

5. Restart and boot from the USB.

6. Click Install elementary OS. Click continue in the first step then in installation type choose something else and continue. The partition table will show up with partitions for windows and one 500GB free space partition.

7. Select the free space partition and click the + sign. Add 250GB, ext 4 journaling and / mount point.

8. On the new free space partition, click + sign. Add 250GB, ext 4 journaling and /home mount point.

9. If you need swap, then set the previous partitions slightly smaller and create a partition with the swap size you need and choose swap in use as.

10. Finish the installation and restart.

11. Remove the USB. The installation should change default boot option in bios to GRUB (you might need to change it manually from BIOS).

Now when you boot the PC, you will get a menu with entries. ElementaryOS will be the default entry, a couple of entries for ElementaryOS (recovery mode...) and Windows 10 will be like the 5th option. You can make Windows 10 the default option. Check the software below.

Recommended software:

Spoiler

Code:

#Get latest updates
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

#Customize grub ie modify boot menu entries using an easy to use GUI
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer

#Best graphical partition manager
sudo apt-get install gparted

#Install Chrome
wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list'
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install google-chrome-stable

#mp3, h264,... support
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
#Note that you need to enable canonical partners

#VLC media player
sudo apt-get install vlc browser-plugin-vlc

#Run 32-bit executables on 64-bit OS
sudo apt-get install libc6-i386

#Graphical apt manager. If you don't like to do apt-get commands using terminal.
sudo apt-get install synaptic

#Windows thinks the hardware clock is in local time by default.
#Linux thinks it is in UTC time.
#You have to change it so that Windows uses UTC time OR Linux uses local time.
#Otherwise you will get wrong time when you change OS. To change it for Linux:
sudo timedatectl set-local-rtc 1

#Update to latest linux kernel
apt-cache search linux-image
#You will get a list of linux kernel. Find the latest linux-image-x.x.x-yy-generic.
#Current latest is 4.8.0-51.
#Go to /boot directory and look for the latest lmlinuz-x.x.x-yy-generic installed.
#If the version is the the same as latest, then you have the latest.
#Otherwise install the latest using (change the x.x.x-yy with latest numbers)
sudo apt-get install linux-image-x.x.x-yy-generic

#If you have hardware issues,
#try first installing these 2 (replace x.x.x-yy-generic with the current kernel you have):
sudo apt-get install linux-image-extra-x.x.x-yy-generic
sudo apt-get install linux-firmware

#If the hardware issue was not fixed, post it here or google for a solution in a linux forum.

 

@kojack: You can partition everything in Windows. Its best to set page file to 512MB because you've 16 gigs of RAM, also you don't hibernate since Linux is very fast even if you shutdown and reboot instead of hibernating.
One thing to remember is, point your bootloader Grub2 to existing ESP partition of Windows so that it gets booted to elementary with Secure boot enabled.
Once Synaptic is installed, install intel CPU firmware to get more support for intel skylake.