How to Dual Boot Windows and Linux | Step By Step

In this video, I go over how to dual boot Windows and Linux.

-Install Ubuntu after Windows
-When choosing default option (it will remove the windows bootloader)
--No easy uninstall
-Specify option is highly recommended for separation
--Create bootloader on new drive
--Create partition (ext4 recommended)
--Mount point /

If using second drive, change your BIOS setting to boot from it.

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[HealMyTech]

Completely agreed with having a second drive for dual boot, too many horror stories to tell!

[wheels]

Well, I bought a new SSD and today installed Ubuntu Gnome as dual boot. It went very straightforwardly and runs well. I think I will be more in Linux than Windows now.

Thanks for the helpful video!

[davidg]

I always manually partition things on a single drive and it's been working fine so far for duel booting. Thank God we had uefi.

[mirsadbehram]

Good presentation. Kept Short and Simple. I'm also with you when it comes to two drives. However, I myself bought a 1 TB HDD and split it in two parts for dual booting years ago. Now I'm full time in Linux (at least at my home). Congrats Chris. Cheers.

[MichaelVash]

First, I would not recommend those unfamiliar with this type of thing use the same hard drive. If you must dual boot for some reason, I'd recommend doing so on a second hard drive as the same drive can have issues. I'm new to Linux but based on all the stuff I've seen and some Joe Collins videos, it doesn't sound like using the same drive for both is worth it.

Second with Mint and Ubuntu, they don't create a swap partition anymore, they use a swap file kinda like the page file in windows. From what I can tell, it's only really advantageous to create a swap partition if you plan to dual boot more than one Linux distro. If you dual boot mint and Ubuntu you'd have two page files taking up space on two different partitions, but a swap partition would be shared. Same with something like Ubuntu and opensuse, you can ultimately just save some space if booting multiple Linux OS and one of them uses a swap file.

Last thing I'd mention, if you need to partition a drive, I'd just install Gparted on the live system and do it there. Much easier to create the partitions there then just add the flags in the installer for Ubuntu and mint.
I plan to build a desktop and plan to have some hdds just for distro hopping or maybe even get an old Dell workstation or something to do so.

[phrtao]

Some people may do all this and find that their computer will simply not boot to the linux drive or partition. Even if you move it up the order the computer will not recognise it as a bootable drive. This confounded me for days when I first encountered it.
The solution is to look into the issue of "Trusted EFI files". On some hardware you have to make a setting to trust all files or you can nominate specific efi files. Once your linux partition (with it's grub loader file) is 'trusted' that's you gateway to choosing other OSs on boot up. So just google "trust efi" and your hardware name of product number and you will be able to find out how to make this setting. Hope this helps some one

[MrCosmonaut]

Great tutorial for newcomers/beginners. We need more videos like this on YT.

[TheRealSpookify]

Thank you so much! This has helped, I've been looking for such a simple and straight to the point video for weeks! Subscribed!

[peterjansen]

Chris, may I suggest for a future video that you explain partitioning and keeping the home folder separate from the OS? Also a good idea for Windows: a smaller partition for the OS and some small programs (browser, mediaplayer, text editor...) and a larger partition where you install games and other big programs and all your documents, videos and music on. Just so that a clean install is easy. Quite honestly, my first thought after reading the title of your video: "too basic". But kudos for not denying that many people have to dual boot. There also are people who say that you shouldn't dual boot at all, that just is not realistic. I think that you should also explain how a bootloader works (where is it installed, what does it do...)? That can be convenient for n00bs, I speak from experience. I recommend newcomers to Linux to just discoulpe their SSD on which Windows is installed while installing Linux, then nothing can go wrong. I wonder if swap still is useful with 16 GB of RAM (for most people). Opinions differ.

[rexevan]

Separate Hard Drive for separate OS. Hell yeah

[JonelKingas]

I need it to play minecraft xD because amd is bad optimized opengl on windows and i want to have both

[peterjansen]

Another interesting item for a future video: how to customize Grub and maybe also how to make it look good, you are seeing it frequently after all, I prefer the first thing which I see to look good, something which Manjaro has though of.

[LazyKingAus]

Kinda new to this my last piece of my first build comes today have 3 drives and I feel like I watched this video too.

[thefloridaman]

It's a very good and straight forward video 👍 I would be interested in what's the best way to backup a Ubuntu & Windows Dualboot, where the two operating systems are installed on the same hard drive. Currently I only backup the data, but I think it would be better to backup the whole drive "like an image". But I didn't quite figure out how to do it, or if it's a good idea.

[TheLotw]

It is better to NOT DUAL BOOT. Install on separate drives or better yet, if possible get a removable tray to keep them completely separate. When you update Windows it can really destroy you boot info when it updates their boot loader. Also with the speed and size of a USB Thumb drive you could install Linux to that.

[doctorwattz]

Was interested in learning linux shell but cutting my SSD in half has raised many red flags for me. Perhaps in the near future I will build a PC for the sole purpose of making simple RPGs until I can fully spread my wings on my development project

[Kevin-mxvi]

My own solution was to put an SSD in a USB3 external drive caddy, install Linux on it, and set up my computer to automatically boot from it if it's connected. Obviously it's not as fast as SATA but it's by no means slow.
Once booted, my Windows drive is recognised by Linux and I can transfer files across from one to the other if necessary.
When I'm comfortable that I can switch to Linux full time, I will swap the drives over so that the Windows SSD becomes the external drive and I can connect it when necessary.

[gray]

Im a gamer an editor and half of my games don’t support Linux and so does my editor. So that’s why I need this. I do editing as a job and I just started learning abt all this privacy stuff so I need this.

[jimcricket]

I actually wish they made dual boot harder to do in the installer. That way the user almost has to prove that they have the knowledge. I did dual boot on my first install I loved it, up until Microsoft pushed an update and completely borkd my machine. Due to that, I educated myself on bootloaders and I'm back to loving Linux.

[JamesWilson-pqqp]

I've been doing it for years, but I still get nervous, will the computer brick. Can we trust Mircosoft's controlled UEFI, will the Ubuntu shim work.