Setup windows and linux on the same drive

goatedpenguin · April 21

Usually when I install a dual boot of linux and windows there always on separate drives so windows does not screw around with my linux install; however, since I only have one drive on my laptop rn I just wanted to ask that to prevent windows from wiping/messing up my install of linux is there a specific "thing" I can do to prevent this? I heard Ubuntu has a feature where it can install it alongside windows but I don't use ubutntu and afaik no other distro has this feature. Thanks in advance

SpaceGhostC2C · April 22

It's not an Ubuntu-exclusive feature; in fact, I probably installed Linux that way most of the times. Granted, they were mostly Debian derivatives, with a few RH-like exceptions. I prefer to avoid it these days, but, for example, my laptop is dual booting Win10 and Linux Mint from the same drive: I shrank the OS partition, then installed Mint to the unused space and let it set up GRUB to give me the choice every time.

I believe Windows 10 and later are smarter about installing themselves alongside Linux too, but I never tried: I stick to the old advice, namely, make a partition, install Windows to it, then install Linux. The installer will tell you whether in needs to nuke Windows anyway, just make sure to choose carefully the install type option and don't confirm any deletion you are not sure of.

goatedpenguin · April 22

Yep I installed it and it works fine, thanks for the insight tho. Have a good one

Ralphred · April 22

3 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

and let it set up GRUB to give me the choice every time.

Just because I like to drop this info for dual booters: Setting GRUB_DEFAULT=saved and GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true in grub.cfg (or ideally /etc/default/grub) means grub will remember which OS you used last boot and treat that as the "default", it means you don't have to hand-hold those "I'm going to reboot 12 times" windows updates.

goatedpenguin · April 22

3 minutes ago, Ralphred said:

Just because I like to drop this info for dual booters: Setting GRUB_DEFAULT=saved and GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true in grub.cfg (or ideally /etc/default/grub) means grub will remember which OS you used last boot and treat that as the "default", it means you don't have to hand-hold those "I'm going to reboot 12 times" windows updates.

Holy shit I did not know about this, the amount of times I have had to deal with constantly changing my OS boot is so frustrating. Thanks man