Newbie dual boot questions

WJacques · Post by **WJacques** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 4:32 am

Hello,

I am about to purchase a new computer next week and I would like to install Linux Mint and Window 7 on the same computer. Apart from a very short period of time many years ago I have never used Linux, so I am a complete newbie to Linux OS and I am not tech- savvy at all.

My questions:

Is it better to have each OS installed on a separate hard drive or to have them installed on different partitions on the same hard drive with a dual boot option?

Is the dual boot option possible when each OS is installed on a separate hard drive on the same computer( can I pick which hard drive to use from a boot menu when I start the computer) ?

Is Mint more newbie friendly than Ubuntu?

Thank you very much.

PatH57 · Post by **PatH57** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:26 am

Hi,

everything you mentioned is possible, the more important question is what kind of PC do you intend to buy?
Did you already decide on the type and model?
And off course Mint is more user friendly for a newbie then Ubuntu

kc1di · Post by **kc1di** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:29 am

WJacques wrote:Hello,

I am about to purchase a new computer next week and I would like to install Linux Mint and Window 7 on the same computer. Apart from a very short period of time many years ago I have never used Linux, so I am a complete newbie to Linux OS and I am not tech- savvy at all.

My questions:

Is it better to have each OS installed on a separate hard drive or to have them installed on different partitions on the same hard drive with a dual boot option?

Is the dual boot option possible when each OS is installed on a separate hard drive on the same computer( can I pick which hard drive to use from a boot menu when I start the computer) ?

Is Mint more newbie friendly than Ubuntu?

Thank you very much.

Hello WJacques and Welcome to Linux Mint Forums,

I'll try to answer some of your questions.
1. It makes no real difference if you dual boot with two H.D. or one - Linux basically sees them both as just different partitions anyway.
2. As to Mint being more newbie friendly most of us on this forum would think so , but if you asked the same thing on Ubuntu's forum they would say the same thing about Ubuntu. It's really quite a personal thing. Cinnamon Desktop is a bit more familiar to those coming from Windows.
3. If you want to be sure your machine will run Linux well you should pay particular attention to the hardware being used.
4. There are many tutorials on the web on how to dual boot your machine.
5. as for the selecting of the H.D. you want to use at boot time I believe that would be up to your Bois /UEFI setup.

Comments if you want to be sure your new machine will boot and run linux - you may want to consider getting it from a company like Zareason or System 76 that specialize in selling machine for linux.
Zareason : http://zareason.com/shop/Desktops/
System76 : https://system76.com/desktops/model/wilp10
or perhaps from the mint store : http://www.linuxmint.com/store_computers.php

Good Luck and enjoy the journey!

Joshual1177 · Post by **Joshual1177** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 6:35 am

When my computer boots I can hit F12 to select which hard drive I want to boot from. So I would think it would make no difference which method you choose to install. I would choose separate hard drives if I was in your shoes just to eliminate the risk of deleting your windows partition. Another benefit is that it would be easier to share files between two hard drives than two partitions.

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WJacques · Post by **WJacques** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 11:24 am

what kind of PC do you intend to buy?... If you want to be sure your machine will run Linux well you should pay particular attention to the hardware being used

My new PC is built to run under Windows 7 and it is only yesterday that I had the idea to try Linux Mint and to dedicate my existing hard drive to this second OS. So for the near future I will only try Mint, but very seriously, and if I realize that I spend more time using Mint than Windows 7 then Mint will slowly become my main OS.

if you asked the same thing on Ubuntu's forum they would say the same thing about Ubuntu
maybe so but one can still, for certain reasons, prefer one distro over all the others but also realize that an other distro may be a better option for a Linux newbie.

Cinnamon Desktop is a bit more familiar to those coming from Windows.
That's what I had in mind when I asked " is Mint more newbie friendly than Ubuntu?".

Yesterday evening I tried Mint with the Live CD. It was a very pleasant experience and I was very surprised that in spite it was working from a CD, how fast and above all how smoothly it works compared to Windows.

There are many tutorials on the web on how to dual boot your machine
Thanks, I will have a look.

Thank you very much for helping

Mark Phelps · Post by **Mark Phelps** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 11:26 am

Is it better to have each OS installed on a separate hard drive or to have them installed on different partitions on the same hard drive with a dual boot option?

In my experience, it's "better" to have each OS on its own physical drive. That way, boot loaders don't get affected by updates to either of the OSs and each drive remains bootable on its own.

WJacques · Post by **WJacques** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 11:40 am

In my experience, it's "better" to have each OS on its own physical drive. That way, boot loaders don't get affected by updates to either of the OSs and each drive remains bootable on its own.

Because of some bad experience in the past, when I intalled Ubuntu on the same physical drive with Windows, that is the way I want to go now.

all41 · Post by **all41** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 11:43 am

In my experience, it's "better" to have each OS on its own physical drive

That is how my Win7s/Mints are installed and that is the ultimate for me.

I would suggest following advice and Tutorials in the Mint Forums

WJacques · Post by **WJacques** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 12:00 pm

I would suggest following advice and Tutorials in the Mint Forums
I will certainly do that. If you know some links to the most useful threads please feel free do direct me to them.

Thanks

all41 · Post by **all41** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 2:41 pm

My two dual boot Win7/Mint17 are now partitioned exactly according to this strategy.
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=122276
These systems do not use UEFI, your case may be different.

I actually unplugged the Win7 hd during my installs just to make sure I didn't disturb them.
After Mint was all installed and updated I reconnected the Win7 hds

I made the Mint hd the default boot hd in bios.
To boot Win7 I enter bios boot options (Esc in my case)and select the Win7 drive.
Mint can view all the files on the Win7 hd and I can transfer any files I want, but Win7 cannot see files on the Mint hd.
So any files I want to transfer from Mint over to Win7 are put in the Win7 user folder to use them in Win7.
(almost never do this though)

Make sure you use the correct procedure for your hardware.

Spearmint2 · Post by **Spearmint2** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 3:04 pm

If you like windows 8, then you will be impressed with Ubuntu and Unity desktop.

If you liked windows XP, then you will want Mint MATE or Cinnamon.

If you liked windows 7, then you should go for Mint KDE.

If you liked Vista, you should just stay with windows.

Derek_S · Post by **Derek_S** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 3:38 pm

Spearmint2 wrote:If you like windows 8, then you will be impressed with Ubuntu and Unity desktop.

If you liked windows XP, then you will want Mint MATE or Cinnamon.

If you liked windows 7, then you should go for Mint KDE.

****If you liked Vista, you should just stay with windows.****

Truer words were never spoken.

I2k4 · Post by **I2k4** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 5:10 pm

I'll let others advise you about other things. Personally I've always dual booted from the same HDD without problems but may be more drives the better. The main thing to know is that Linux GRUB boot loader overrides the Windows boot loader and it's something of a geek pain in the A to undo it. In case "something goes wrong" with GRUB I've found Boot Repair (run from a Live USB) worth its weight in gold:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

slipstick · Post by **slipstick** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 5:55 pm

Note: The following may not apply because your new computer may have UEFI - mine has the old style BIOS. If you have UEFI/GPT just ignore this.

I dual boot with XP using two hard drives (actually, I find I almost never use Windows anymore). I installed Linux Mint on sda and left my XP drive untouched on sdb. I left sdb plugged in during installation so that GRUB installation could see the Windows system and set up accordingly - I was very careful to install GRUB to sda (not sda1). I have the choice of booting into either Linux (default) or XP from the GRUB menu, no need to enter BIOS setup to choose XP. When I boot into XP, GRUB is smart enough to swap the drive order to make XP think it is booting from the first hard drive (necessary in XP, but I think maybe not necessary in W7).

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