[TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

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MichaelBaker985

Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1 Computer

Post by MichaelBaker985 »

Thanks for the information, I needed it to help my mon with her laptop.
beckettw

Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1 Computer

Post by beckettw »

Wow! I spent a long time trying to do this on my own and then found these instructions. This is just what I needed to get things working. I set up a dual boot using Linux 17.3 64 bit and Windows 10. This is a new computer, Dell Inspiron 5559, Module,Dual In-Line Memory Module,6G,1X2G/1X4G,1600,DR3, HARD DRIVE, 1TB, S3, 5.4, 512E. I wanted to split the OS partition to have 500 gig for each. The Linux partition manager would not give me access to that partition until I deleted it. This was not a problem because I had a full image of the drive using SnapShot. I just followed the directions to create the three Linux partitions and ran the install. After it was complete I removed the hard drive and restored the Windows OS image to the Windows partition. Then I reinstalled the hard drive and booted the computer. The computer showed a repair, then rebooted, then the hourglass went for several minutes, then the screen turned light blue and Windows 10 came up.

-Will BPCS
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Compute

Post by Rosko »

Thank you for the tutorial gold_finger and everyone else who has added to it along the way!

I followed the instructions word for word and installed Mint 17.2 from DVD and am dual booting with Windows 10. Did the install a week ago and wanted to run it for a bit before commenting here so I could report any problems I had during or post installation.... absolutely NONE to report.

My system specs:
Acer Aspire TC-115
Bios: American Megatrends version: P11-A1 date: 05/16/2014
CPU: Quad core AMD A6-6310 APU with AMD Radeon R4 Graphics
HDD: 1000.2GB
Memory: 4GB DDR3
thecompu

Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Compute

Post by thecompu »

I followed this on 1-23-2016 on a UX305 Zenbook from ASUS. No problems. Cheers.
huzzug

Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Compute

Post by huzzug »

Hi guys. Thanks for the guide. Unfortunately, I came to know about this one after I did the goofup. So I created another thread about this, but since me being a new member here, the thread is up for moderation. I'll ask about it here. My system:

i7 3930K
Asus Rampage IV Extreme
16GB DDR3
AMD 7950 x 2
Sandisk 240GB SSD (win7)
WD 500GB HDD (random media)
WD 2TB HDD (800GB of random media files and 900GB containing Linux Mint)

Right, so i followed through with the installation (not using the any guide due to my small brain) being mindful of not installing it on my SSD as that would be a disaster. It has my work files and software's. So, the issue:

The system directly boots to Linux Mint. It does not show any prompts at startup asking for which operating system I'd like to run. I had installed Linux through an bootable USB and through an installer from this very site.
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Compute

Post by austin.texas »

huzzug wrote: Right, so i followed through with the installation (not using the any guide due to my small brain) being mindful of not installing it on my SSD as that would be a disaster. It has my work files and software's. So, the issue:

The system directly boots to Linux Mint. It does not show any prompts at startup asking for which operating system I'd like to run. I had installed Linux through an bootable USB and through an installer from this very site.
Review the tutorial for any step you might have missed - such as, making sure Windows was installed in UEFI mode. Or you can run the command

Code: Select all

sudo update-grub
to see if that helps.
Mint 18.2 Cinnamon, Quad core AMD A8-3870 with Radeon HD Graphics 6550D, 8GB DDR3, Ralink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Compute

Post by cypherdtraitor »

Thanks for writing this, the UEFI thing is going to seriously slow Linux adoption in the coming years.

Some systems have "mixed" UEFI modes. That is a 32 bit UEFI with a 64 bit processor. They are a pain in the butt to set up. You'll need to add instructions to check for this, and instructions for how to repackage a 32bit EFI "start file."

This tutorial is confirmed to work:

http://www.jfwhome.com/2014/03/07/perfe ... book-t100/

Other links:
http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mi ... face_Pro_3
akui

Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

Post by akui »

Tried this fix

I have tried booting from the Windows drive and entering the following on grub rescue:

set boot=(hd0,msdos3)
set boot=(hd0,msdos3)/boot/grub

Enter insmod normal after this get an unknown filesystem error. I saw a fix that said to do this and then type normal however I am unable to do this.
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

Post by austin.texas »

akui wrote: I have tried booting from the Windows drive and entering the following on grub rescue:
set boot=(hd0,msdos3)
set boot=(hd0,msdos3)/boot/grub
Enter insmod normal after this get an unknown filesystem error. I saw a fix that said to do this and then type normal however I am unable to do this.
Is sda3 a EFI System Partition (ESP)?
Is Windows installed in UEFI mode?
If you have GPT partitioning, you don't put "(hd0,msdos3)" - it is "(hd0,gpt3)"
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

Post by deepakdeshp »

An excellent tutorial.

Isnt it necessary to install windows first and mint last?
If windows is installed aftee mint this possibility and grub recovery should be added to the tutorial.
If I have helped you solve a problem, please add [SOLVED] to your first post title, it helps other users looking for help.
Regards,
Deepak

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MrDoh

Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

Post by MrDoh »

Just to add to this, since I didn't read the whole thread...I found that UEFI dual-disk dual-boot install on a Lenovo K450e desktop didn't work for me. Lenovo requires "Windows Boot Manager" to be in the EFI name space, so I ended up installing Linux Mint 18 in BIOS "Legacy Mode". I tried putting a dummy "Windows Boot Manager" entry into the EFI boot name space, but even that didn't seem to work. While Legacy Mode boot works fine, it means that I have to go through the BIOS and switch to UEFI mode for Windows boot and Legacy mode to boot the Linux Mint disk.

Many thanks to Lenovo for complicating my life, I really appreciate that. Nice desktop, but I might not have bought it if I had known how difficult they had made it to use UEFI boot with Linux.
gold_finger

Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

Post by gold_finger »

deepakdeshp wrote:An excellent tutorial.

Isnt it necessary to install windows first and mint last?
If windows is installed aftee mint this possibility and grub recovery should be added to the tutorial.
It's definitely easier to install Windows first, then Mint -- but can be done the other way around if necessary. Like you said, if done that way some fiddling will be required to restore ability to boot Mint. That's beyond scope I wanted to cover in tutorial and is really an extremely rare circumstance since the vast majority of computers already come with Windows on them and Mint is installed later.
extramedium

Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

Post by extramedium »

Thanks for the manual! This should be part of the official Mint manual!

What I had to do to turn of secure boot:
  • Press F1 during startup of computer
    Security > Secure boot > Disabled
    Press Esc
    Startup > UEFI/Legacy Boot > UEFI Only
    CSM Support > No
    Press F10
* Highlight the EFI System Partition (usually a 200-550MB partition formatted FAT32) that Windows already created on the system and click "Change". Make sure it's set to EFI Boot (or /boot/efi) -- leave the size and formatting alone (do not change them). Here is a screenshot example of what you should see (your partition size may be different):
This got me confused, because in Mint 18 it is called EFI System Partition.


Code: Select all

System:    Host: SAL-9000 Kernel: 4.4.0-21-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.3.1)
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.0.7 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.1)
           Distro: Linux Mint 18 Sarah
Machine:   System: LENOVO (portable) product: 20FWCTO1WW v: ThinkPad T460p
           Mobo: LENOVO model: 20FWCTO1WW v: SDK0J40697 WIN
           Bios: LENOVO v: R07ET67W (2.07 ) date: 06/07/2016
CPU:       Quad core Intel Core i7-6700HQ (-HT-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 20735
           clock speeds: max: 3500 MHz 1: 799 MHz 2: 1608 MHz 3: 927 MHz
           4: 1781 MHz 5: 800 MHz 6: 2999 MHz 7: 855 MHz 8: 912 MHz
Graphics:  Card-1: Intel Skylake Integrated Graphics bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Card-2: NVIDIA GM108M [GeForce 940MX] bus-ID: 02:00.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.3 driver: nvidia
           Resolution: 2560x1440@60.00hz
           GLX Renderer: GeForce 940MX/PCIe/SSE2
           GLX Version: 4.5.0 NVIDIA 361.42 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel Sunrise Point-H HD Audio
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.4.0-21-generic
Network:   Card-1: Intel Ethernet Connection (2) I219-LM
           driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k bus-ID: 00:1f.6
           IF: enp0s31f6 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Intel Wireless 8260 driver: iwlwifi bus-ID: 03:00.0
           IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 256.1GB (10.8% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: SAMSUNG_MZ7TY256 size: 256.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 20G used: 6.3G (35%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5
           ID-2: /home size: 78G used: 775M (2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 20.97GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda7
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 42.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 0.0:40C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 2259
Info:      Processes: 253 Uptime: 3:14 Memory: 1783.7/15912.6MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.421) inxi: 2.2.35
gold_finger

Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

Post by gold_finger »

extramedium wrote:
* Highlight the EFI System Partition (usually a 200-550MB partition formatted FAT32) that Windows already created on the system and click "Change". Make sure it's set to EFI Boot (or /boot/efi) -- leave the size and formatting alone (do not change them). Here is a screenshot example of what you should see (your partition size may be different):

This got me confused, because in Mint 18 it is called EFI System Partition.
I'm assuming you're talking about the step shown in this screenshot, correct?

Thanks for pointing out the change. Will edit tutorial with the info.
flyingeggs

Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

Post by flyingeggs »

Thanks for the tutorial. I'm not a new Linux user but I AM new to this EFI. I just installed LM 18 on a custom build with Windows 10 already installed. The instructions were very clear and worked out great.

I had some issues installing LM. Turned out that a corrupted copy of GRUB was already installed in the EFI from a failed attempt at installing previously. Whenever I tried installing LM 18, it would boot into a GRUB shell. The solution was to clear out the old entries and delete the traces of the old GRUB from before. After that, I just followed the instructions here and everything works. That's probably some basic stuff for some of you but this was a new lesson for me.
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

Post by Spearmint2 »

That's actually a good suggestion for someone to change the install program so it will search for earlier installs that might cause the new install to fail and to change or remove the old GRUB first.
All things go better with Mint. Mint julep, mint jelly, mint gum, candy mints, pillow mints, peppermint, chocolate mints, spearmint,....
zynphull

Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

Post by zynphull »

Can somebody confirm I'm following the last few steps correctly?

Specifically, the tutorial mentions we have to set a small partition (usually formatted as fat32) as efi. I found no such partition in my list, except for one of type 'efi', System "Windows Boot Manager" and size 104mb. Is this it? When I click on "change" though, the "use as" option is already set as EFI System Partition: should I leave it as is, then?

On the other hand, there is a ntfs partition of size 524mb, which I assume is actually Windows Recovery, so I assume that's not the correct one, right?

Furthermore, when choosing the Device for boot loader installation, I have to choose the same partition as above yes? That is, in my case, the one named Windows boot manager?

I'm not completely sure of this because the steps don't match the tutorial one to one, and I'm (from previous experiences) very aware of how much things can go wrong when trying to double boot Linux....
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

Post by austin.texas »

zynphull wrote:Specifically, the tutorial mentions we have to set a small partition (usually formatted as fat32) as efi. I found no such partition in my list, except for one of type 'efi', System "Windows Boot Manager" and size 104mb.
Yes, that is it. The ESP (EFI System Partition) has to be fat32.
zynphull wrote:When I click on "change" though, the "use as" option is already set as EFI System Partition: should I leave it as is, then?
Yes, Use As: EFI System Partition is correct.
zynphull wrote:On the other hand, there is a ntfs partition of size 524mb, which I assume is actually Windows Recovery, so I assume that's not the correct one, right?
The ESP has to be fat32.
zynphull wrote:Furthermore, when choosing the Device for boot loader installation, I have to choose the same partition as above yes? That is, in my case, the one named Windows boot manager?
The Device for bootloader installation is the ESP - the fat32 partition.
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Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

Post by JCSenar »

gold_finger wrote:Pick a Mint version to Install:
* Here is a list of all Mint releases: http://www.linuxmint.com/oldreleases.php.
The link does not work. This is the correct link: https://www.linuxmint.com/download_all.php
Si tu consulta ha sido resuelta, por favor, edita tu primer mensaje y añade [SOLUCIONADO] al título. Gracias.
nskz24

Re: [TUTORIAL] Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1/10 Computer

Post by nskz24 »

you saved me here!

bought a recent x1 yoga from lenovo - installed it via legacy the first time, and mint wouldnt boot.

So your post saved my day, thanks a lot! :)
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