Linux Mint && Windows 8

[net.cat]

Hi guys! I'm trying to understand how to make a good dualboot between these two
How do u suggest me to proceed?
Would be better to install first mint or 8? 'cause I don't know if 8 then sees mint but @ the same time ... grub now is giving me problems to boot CD/DVDs :S
during the mint installation ... how sould I partition the HD o make everything work good with 8? :/

plz help!!

THANKS!

[cudayne]

I have windows8 an mint installed together you must install windows first well not must but it makes life easier as windows don't play nice with other OS when installed second.

when i did it I installed windows8 on an 250gb partition

then installed mint 12kde broken down into
swap
/
/home.

You can install Linux first then windows but that requires you going into the Linux command line from a live cd install grub2 update it edit it ect. just much faster too install windows8 first then linux.

[net.cat]

Thanks man for your indications.
Last thing, in which partition did u set to install grub?

[AlbertP]

You can use the automatic partitioning, no need to do it yourself if you don't have any specific needs that require another setup. Just install Windows, and then install Linux next to Windows. I think it won't yet recognize Windows 8, so it'll show you "other OS" or "Windows 7" but it should just work that way. At least, I hope so.

Always install Windows before installing Linux. That's the only thing which matters. If you do it in reverse it'll be significantly harder to get dual-boot working, especially since the people on the forum don't yet have much Windows 8 experience.

[net.cat]

Sorry but the automatic option (the first one) is not even visible since the installer doesn't recognize windows 8!
I created:
swap -> 2GB
/ -> 8GB
/home -> the rest

should I set to install grub in "/ " ?
do u think that after installation I'll be easy capable to boot in win8? :/
In that case should I fix somehow grub or replace it with burg or something else!?

[AlbertP]

You should always install the bootloader (at the bottom of the installer's partitioning screen) on /dev/sda, not on a partition. Let's hope Grub recognizes some kind of Windows or other OS and will allow you to boot into it.

If that won't work, you can also install the bootloader on the Mint partition instead of just /dev/sda, and use EasyBCD on Windows to create a dual-boot. But I am afraid EasyBCD might not yet support Windows 8.

[net.cat]

mmmmh! sounds dangerous :/ I don't want to screw up my fresh w8 and restart everything while waiting 4 a more comfortable solution I'll use it via VM! tnx btw!

[srs5694]

The advice in this thread is reasonable for BIOS-based computers; however, most new computers today are now shipping with EFI-enabled firmware, and that changes everything. I haven't actually installed Mint on an EFI-based computer, but I have installed Ubuntu on one, and it's a nightmare in a dual-boot situation. The reason is that Ubuntu's installer is extremely ill-behaved; it wipes out the Windows boot loader, rendering Windows unbootable if you install Windows first, as is the simplest way to do it on BIOS-based computers. If you do Ubuntu first, it's not much better, since Ubuntu creates a FAT16 EFI System Partition (ESP; the partition on which EFI-based computers store their boot loaders), and Windows has trouble dealing with that. Windows wants a FAT32 ESP, so to satisfy Windows after installing Ubuntu, you've got to back up the ESP, create a fresh FAT32 filesystem on it, restore the files you've backed up, and edit your /etc/fstab file to refer to the partition by its new serial number.

There's a long-standing bug report on this issue, but the last I checked, the Ubuntu developers had ignored it. I only hope they fix it before the 12.04 LTS release -- in a year or two, if this bug is around on an LTS OS, it'll be hurting a lot of people!