If I push the power button and just stand back, Linux starts up. That's fantastic. I love that it's the primary OS. The problem is when I need Windows, I push F12 (Boot Option) when I see the Alienware logo and sometimes it does the 'right' thing (i.e. a blue screen pops up and it offers me Legacy or UEFI boot options. Under UEFI it says 'Windows Boot Manager'. I click that and W10 boots up) and sometimes it does the 'wrong' thing (i.e. it goes to GRUB and I'm only offered a choice of Linux Mint 19 or memory test). There's no predicting which will pop up (the blue Legacy/UEFI screen or GRUB). It seems totally random.
What I think I want to do is prevent Grub from ever coming on automatically but I'm not sure if that will mess something up or not.
Also, shouldn't I be able to set it up so that when GRUB does come I should see an option to boot into Windows or would that only be with a dual boot (not dual drive) machine? If I could make it do that, that would be the ideal solution.
Here are the hw/sw specs for my laptop:
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mac@mac-Alienware-15-R3:~$ inxi -Fxzd
System: Host: mac-Alienware-15-R3 Kernel: 4.15.0-36-generic x86_64
bits: 64 gcc: 7.3.0
Desktop: Cinnamon 3.8.9 (Gtk 3.22.30-1ubuntu1)
Distro: Linux Mint 19 Tara
Machine: Device: laptop System: Alienware product: Alienware 15 R3 v: 1.2.4 serial: N/A
Mobo: Alienware model: Alienware 15 R3 v: A00 serial: N/A
UEFI [Legacy]: Alienware v: 1.2.4 date: 01/25/2018
Battery BAT1: charge: 70.2 Wh 100.0% condition: 70.2/99.0 Wh (71%)
model: COMPAL PABAS0241231 status: Full
CPU: Quad core Intel Core i7-7700HQ (-MT-MCP-)
arch: Skylake rev.9 cache: 6144 KB
flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 22464
clock speeds: max: 3800 MHz 1: 800 MHz 2: 800 MHz 3: 800 MHz
4: 800 MHz 5: 800 MHz 6: 800 MHz 7: 800 MHz 8: 800 MHz
Graphics: Card-1: Intel Device 591b bus-ID: 00:02.0
Card-2: NVIDIA GP106M [GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile] bus-ID: 01:00.0
Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 )
drivers: modesetting (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
Resolution: 1920x1080@60.02hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 630 (Kaby Lake GT2)
version: 4.5 Mesa 18.0.5 Direct Render: Yes
Audio: Card Intel CM238 HD Audio Controller
driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-36-generic
Network: Card-1: Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2500 Gigabit Ethernet Controller
driver: alx port: d000 bus-ID: 3c:00.0
IF: enp60s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
driver: ath10k_pci bus-ID: 3d:00.0
IF: wlp61s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Card-3: Atheros usb-ID: 001-003
IF: null-if-id state: N/A speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Drives: HDD Total Size: 3000.6GB (11.7% used)
ID-1: /dev/sda model: WDC_WDBNCE0010PN size: 1000.2GB
ID-2: /dev/sdb model: WDC_WDS200T2B0B size: 2000.4GB
Optical: No optical drives detected.
Partition: ID-1: / size: 1.8T used: 328G (19%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb1
RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 46.5C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 253 Uptime: 15 min Memory: 3156.9/15910.0MB
Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 7.3.0
Client: Shell (bash 4.4.191) inxi: 2.3.56