SOLVED Need info for laptops that will install a dual boot mint /windows system

[Wiz66]

Having difficulty trying to find laptops that will support a dual boot mint / windows system. I have friends that seem to think that Acer's are more compatible. But, info is hard to find....

I am looking at a Acer A515-51-50RR, 15.6" Laptop With Intel® Core™ i5 . Anyone know if it is possible to use this laptop for a dual boot?

Would appreciate any feed back

[Pierre]

it was usually HP / Dell that gave the most issues when trying any Dual_Boot out.

the Lenovo / Toshiba / Acer did seem to be okay, when trying any Dual_Boot out.

at least, that is what I've found ..

the thing is, that Before you attempt any Dual_Boot - - you should Test All that Hardware:
- in the Live Environment .. ..

[jimallyn]

My feedback would be that you can do a dual boot install on just about anything these days. Yeah, I know some people have problems, but for most people it just works. Do a search for that model along with Linux and see what comes up.

[CaptainKirksChair]

Well, if it will run Windows, it will run Mint. My recommendation is if you are not sure about the hardware, make sure it has Intel. CPU, GPU, wireless, etc. I've had practically no problems with Intel hardware. I have an old Dell Latitude E6400. It's not dual boot but it runs Mint 18.3 Cinnamon just fine. You can dual boot just about any computer if you have enough hard drive space. I would make sure you have at least a 500GB hard drive; 1TB if you can afford it. If you have a minimal system (2GB ram or less, 32bit processor, etc.) you might want to try Xfce or Mate rather than Cinnamon. If you get a new laptop (or new-er) with 4GB ram or more, 64bit processor, large hard drive, you should be fine with either DE and a dual boot configuration. There are some caveats though.

Disable Secure Boot and Windows Fast Booting. Secure Boot is not needed for Linux and may cause some strangeness. Windows Fast Booting is just a version of hibernation and locks the Windows partition so it can't be accessed. This way, your Windows NTFS partition will be available in Mint. Just remember that your EXT4 Linux partition will not be available while you are in Windows.

There is an excellent tutorial on this forum about dual booting Windows and Mint.

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=163126

It says Windows 8/8.1/10 but it's for any dual boot system. I used it to dual boot my external USB hard drive with macOS X and Mint.

With all that said, buy the most powerful laptop you can afford. It will last a good long time running Mint even if Windows runs like a slug stuck in super glue. Hardware can be an intensely personal choice so it's really up to you. Do remember that the latest and greatest hardware may not work perfectly with Linux at first. Sometimes it takes a few months for Linux to catch up with things like drivers and kernel updates and such.

[michael louwe]

.

.
Also, bear in mind that Win 10's forced auto-updates/upgrades will often bork the Grub bootloader in a dual-booted system, requiring a manual reinstall of Grub.efi. ... https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/6 . This is because a Win 10 inplace upgrade to a newer version every 6 months actually means a new install of Win 10 and in a dual-boot system, the last OS installed will take over control of the boot process through chain-loading = after a Win 10 inplace upgrade, Win 10 will take over control of booting. But because Win 10 cannot read Linux files/partitions, Win 10 upgrades will result in LM 19.0 becoming unbootable = LM 19's Grub.efi has to be reinstalled on the Windows EFI System Partition(ESP).
....... This recurring problem cannot continue for long because too many reinstall of the Windows and Linux bootloaders on the Windows ESP(= only about 200MB in size) will soon fill up the ESP to capacity = bootloaders can no longer be reinstalled = the boot problem likely becomes unfixable = reinstall both OS or delete the ESP, recreate it as fat32/2000MB and manually reinstall the Windows Boot Manager and Grub.efi on it.

Because of this, tech-geeks prefer to keep both OS and its bootloaders on separate drives, eg ...
1. use 2 different computers or
2. use 2 internal hard-drives(= for desktops) or
3. keep Win 10 on the internal hard-drive and install LM 19 on an external USB hard-drive or
4. install LM on a virtual machine(eg VMWare or VirtualBox) or
5. run a Live LM 19 USB 3.0 Flash-drive with Persistent Storage.
....... 2 and 3 can be done more easily in Legacy BIOS/MBR(ms-dos) mode install, instead of in UEFI mode.

[Pierre]

~snip

Because of this, tech-geeks prefer to keep both OS and its bootloaders on separate drives, eg ...
1. use 2 different computers or
2. use 2 internal hard-drives(= for desktops) or
3. keep Win 10 on the internal hard-drive and install LM 19 on an external USB hard-drive or
4. install LM on a virtual machine(eg VMWare or VirtualBox) or
5. run a Live LM 19 USB 3.0 Flash-drive with Persistent Storage.
....... 2 and 3 can be done more easily in Legacy BIOS/MBR(ms-dos) mode install, instead of in UEFI mode.

6. keep Win 10 in a virtual machine (eg VMWare or VirtualBox) on an Linux Host

[michael louwe]

6. keep Win 10 in a virtual machine (eg VMWare or VirtualBox) on an Linux Host

.
AFAIK, you need a Win 10 Retail or Ent Volume License to do that, ie an OEM Win 10 license will not do.

[Pierre]

Yep - - that's also true,, but wasn't going to complicate the issue,, just yet.

[Wiz66]

Thanks to all of you for your input. The Window 10 issue could be a pain in the a__ to deal with. But, Microsoft has a tendency to screw things up. Anyway, before I invest $500+ into a new laptop I want to make damn it will support the dual boot configuration.......

Wiz66

[jpenguin]

You could always go with zareasn or system76