Advice on dual-booting with Win10

Des

Member
Just got a new Win10 system from PCS and I wonder if anyone can advise me how to setup a dual-boot with Mint or Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Would be happy to get a new disk just for the Linux stuff to make it as easy as possible.

Any success stories?

Cheers,
 

Stephen M

Author Level
You are probably OK just to go for an install from a USB, although it is possible to will have to turn secure boot off and i would disable fast boot anyway. I mainly use Ubuntu but have used MInt.

A few things, there can be GPU driver issues but they are resolvable. Posting your spec would help to identify possible problems.

I would go with a live session from the USB first and have a quick play to see how things are, then take the install option. Let Ubuntu partition for you, even with the auto-partition you can choose how much space you allocate to each OS.

If if fails, the next step is to go with nomodeset.

There is also a possibility of a log in loop, one option to fix that is to choose at log in to go with "Ubuntu on Wayland".

If anything does go amiss post back here and we will try to help. I have put Linux and about 10 PCS machines and despite a few problems have always been happy with it, it may just be a bit frustrating at the start.
 

Des

Member
Thanks for that.

This is my first experience of a UEFI system, so I'm a little wary of screwing up the existing installation. After booting from the USB stick and installing to a suitable partition/drive, how is the system left?

On a previous machine, Win7/Mint, I think I had GRUB setup to choose the Win system automatically after a short delay, which allowed me the option to boot into Linux. Will Grub on UEFI work much the same

...first step is to source a clean disk...

For reference:
Case
COOLERMASTER SILENCIO 452 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor i7-8700k (3.7GHz) 12MB Cache
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2666MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SAMSUNG 970 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 2300MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW & SOFTWARE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H60 2018 Hydro Cooler w/ PCS Ultra Quiet Fans
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit - inc. Single Lic
 
Last edited:

Stephen M

Author Level
You have got a decent size m2 drive so room for both OS on that easily. I would put Windows on first if it is not already installed and then use the automatic install with Ubuntu, there is no need to set up partitions before hand as the install process will do it, just check the "install Ubuntu alongside . . ." option. UEFI has been OK with Ubuntu for a while now.
As long as Window fast boot is not active you should get time. I have not dual booted with Windows for a long time so cannot be sure but with various Linux distros installed there is a good few seconds to choose.

Looking at your spec i cannot see any problems, have used Ubuntu on that GPU and m2 drive and the rest looks fine. I think all Intel CPUs play nicely with 'nix
 
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johno11

Member
Hi Des,

I have a laptop ( more here) running W10 / Peppermint v9 dual boot (on same disk) with an Nvidia graphics card, and it all works fine as far as I can tell. I haven't tried to use Bluetooth but it's present and seems OK.

There are a few things to do in preparation for dual boot with Windows 10.

If you will be creating your LiveUSB on W10, use Rufus (https://rufus.ie/) and select partition scheme GPT, for EFI.

Stop W10 doing a 'fast boot' ( as detailed here).

Turn secure boot off in bios. Either boot and press F2 (lots) to get into bios, or from W10 you can tell it to reboot into bios (somewhere in the Settings menu).

Grub2 will work as you are used to but Linux will be the default choice - you can change that and the countdown after installation.

Good luck.
 
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Des

Member
Ok that proved to be very straightforward.

Booted from a MintUSB stick (hit f12 to select the USB as the boot source). Used 'rufus' to create the image on the stick

Ran the Mint install and selected a spare SSD disk from my old PC as the the target drive.

On completion, it rebooted and GRUB left me with an option to boot the Linux or boot the existing Win10 installation. Both options were successful.

So, now when I boot it selects the Win10 by default. If I want Linux, I hit F12 during boot and it allows me to select the Linux disk and via Grub, boots Mint.

That works for me, as I said, very easy.

Cheers,
 
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