Many who have visited this page are hearing for the first time that it is possible to install two operating systems next to each other, but such an opportunity exists. This article is intended for those people who want to know how to install Ubuntu next to Windows 10. The article will examine in detail all aspects of the presented operation, from the very beginning to the last stages.
Why install Ubuntu next to Windows?
Initially, it’s worth talking about why this is necessary in general. After all, many people use only one on their computer throughout their lives, and do not complain. Of course, everyone has their own need for such an installation, but in any case, it is stupid to say that it is necessary.
To analyze this issue in detail, you first need to become familiar with the operating systems themselves, that is, Ubuntu and Windows. And if almost every person knows about Windows, then perhaps someone is hearing about Ubuntu for the first time. Of course, it will not be possible to talk about everything in the article, after all, that’s not what the topic is about, but a couple of aspects are worth touching on.
The first difference, and perhaps the main one, is that the Ubuntu operating system does not have a registry. This probably means nothing to many, but this fact is positive. After all, everyone has encountered the problem that after using Windows for a long time, it begins to slow down: processes take a long time to start, the central processor cannot cope with processing assigned tasks, and the computer periodically freezes. So, this is all due to a clogged registry. That is, even if you use Ubuntu for a very long time, its performance will not drop.
In addition, there are no viruses on Ubuntu, and there is no need to protect the system with antiviruses.
All this has a positive effect on the operation of this OS, and this is why most people are interested in how Ubuntu is installed next to Windows 10.
First stage: creating a bootable USB flash drive
Before we talk about how Ubuntu is installed next to Windows 10, we need to explain how to burn a bootable USB flash drive with the desired operating system.
Everything is simple here, but many at this stage reach a dead end. Nowadays, there are a lot of programs that allow you to record an OS image, and they are all good in their own way, some allow you to do this quickly and without deep knowledge of computers, while others do the opposite.
The article will talk about one of these programs, more precisely about Rufus.
Now let's take a closer look at it.
Burning a USB Flash Drive Using Rufus
Burning a bootable USB flash drive using Rufus software can be considered the easiest and fastest. And if you doubt your abilities, then this method is just for you.
This program is open access, and anyone can download it for free from the official website. After downloading, no installation is required; you can immediately start writing the image to a USB flash drive.
After opening, it will appear before your eyes. As you can see, it is very compact, and this is good, because it is free of unnecessary information that no one needs, and all the actions performed will lead to only one thing - recording a bootable flash drive.
So, the flash drive is inserted into the computer, and you are ready to begin the process. For this:
On the first page, select the language and click “Next”.
On the second page you need to choose whether to download updates during installation or not. This is optional, but if you don’t check the box, the updates can be downloaded later. But it’s better to check the box next to installing third-party software so that there are no conflicts with your devices and everything functions correctly after installation. Click “Next”.
The third step will be to select the installation type, since we are installing Ubuntu next to Windows 10 (on another drive or not, it doesn’t matter), select “Other option” and click “Next”.
At this stage we need to partition the disk. If you have not left free space under Ubuntu before, then you need to take a piece of memory from the created partitions. It is best to take memory from drive D, since it is not a system drive on Windows 10. To do this, based on its size, find it in the list and right-click and select Resize/Move from the menu. In the window that appears, opposite the Free space following line, indicate the size of the memory to be taken, 50,000 MiB is enough.
Next, you need to split the detached section into subsections. To do this, select it and click the “+” sign. In the window that opens, allocate memory for the root partition and in the opposite “Use as”, select “ext4”, and opposite “Mount point” - “/”. Click OK.
Now let's create a swap partition. To do this, allocate 4,000 MiB of memory and select swap in the drop-down list. Click OK.
At this stage you need to select your time zone.
At the last stage, you need to fill out all the fields and click “Continue”.
We determine which image will be recorded. In the lower right part of the program window, find the button with the disk icon and click it. Explorer will open, in it navigate to the downloaded file, in this case to Ubuntu, and click OK.
Determine the flash drive. In the program window, find the “Device” item, click on it, a drop-down list will appear, select your flash drive in it.
We determine the partition scheme and the type of system interface. At this step you need to select your indicators. If you have MBR, then choose it, if GPT, then choose it. We'll talk about this in more detail below.
Define the file system. In our case, we choose FAT32, since we are installing a Linux distribution; if we had to record Windows, then we should have chosen NTFS.
Now press start and wait for the flash drive to write.
As for choosing a partition scheme and the type of system interface, everything is generally simple here. If Ubuntu is installed next to Windows 10 on a GPT disk, then select this item in the drop-down list; if on an MBR with BIOS or UEFI, then select it accordingly. But do not think that the instructions will be different for each item. Installing Ubuntu next to Windows 10 MBR is no different from GPT.
Stage two: start of installation
Unfortunately, this stage may vary significantly between users, since it directly depends on the type of system interface. As you know, there are two types: BIOS and UEFI. The article will talk about each of them, and will describe in detail how Ubuntu is installed next to Windows 10 on UEFI and BIOS.
Starting installation via BIOS
BIOS is most likely installed on every second person reading this article. In general, it is already considered a relic; it was UEFI that replaced it. But since there are still a lot of people with BIOS, it’s worth touching on the topic of installing Ubuntu through it.
After the OS image has been written to the USB flash drive, the installation of Ubuntu 16.04 begins next to Windows 10. To do this, restart your computer and press the Del or F2 key while it starts. This will take you to the computer's BIOS. Here we are only interested in one tab. Use the directional arrows on your keyboard to navigate to the BOOT tab. It is here that we need to select a priority device when starting the computer. We need to select a flash drive.
Important! On each computer, the BIOS may be different, and the choice of priority device may vary, so there will be no specifics.
If you have trouble understanding a foreign language, then pay attention to the fields where Hard, Disk and Priority are written. Opposite these fields will be written the name of your hard drive, often it starts with SATA, it is SATA that needs to be changed to a USB Flash Card.
We hope this abstract representation will help you choose the right settings, but even if a mistake was made, don’t be afraid, it won’t lead to anything bad.
After selecting the priority device, go to the Exit column and select the first item - “Exit while saving changed settings.”
Your PC will now reboot and the Ubuntu installer will launch.
Starting installation via UEFI
In general, installing Ubuntu next to Windows 10 UEFI and BIOS is no different, only the steps are slightly different.
After burning the bootable USB flash drive, you will also need to restart your computer and enter the BOOT Menu, only now UEFI. To do this, when you boot the computer, you need to press the corresponding key, it is different on each computer, it depends on your motherboard. Below is a table that will clearly show which key you need to press.
Manufacturer/device | Key to start UEFI |
MSI motherboard | |
Gigabyte motherboard | |
Asus motherboard | |
Intel motherboard | |
AsRock motherboard | |
Asus laptops | |
Acer laptops | |
Dell laptops | |
HP laptops | |
Lenovo laptops | |
Packard Bell laptops | |
Samsung laptops | |
Sony Vaio laptops | |
Toshiba laptops |
So, you restarted the computer and pressed the corresponding key, now the BOOT Menu has opened in front of you, in it select launching the flash drive via UEFI - this is the item where the word “UEFI” is written before the name of the flash drive.
This will open the Ubuntu installer.
Choosing an Ubuntu installation method
So, after following the above instructions, the grub menu should open in front of you, from which we select the method of installing Ubuntu itself. In general, there are two options: launch the operating system from a flash drive and, after checking it for functionality, perform the installation, or proceed with the installation immediately. The choice is up to you. But it is worth noting that if you launch the OS from a flash drive, you will be able to use the programs during installation.
Disk partitioning
After selecting the operating system installation method, the installation itself begins.
Algorithm of actions:
That's all, the installation has begun, after it is finished the computer will reboot and you can choose which operating system to boot from, Ubuntu or Windows 10. I would also like to remind you that installing Ubuntu next to Windows 10 on the same disk or on different ones is no different, You just need to select the one you need during installation.
The long-standing rivalry between Windows and Linux has given rise to two completely irreconcilable camps of supporters of these operating systems. Indeed, both systems have enough advantages and disadvantages. Not all users have the opportunity to compare them, since the majority of them use computers with Windows preinstalled. Another part of the users is confused by an unfamiliar operating system and it seems easier to them from time to time to look for pirated keys on the Internet than to face the installation of a new, even free, system. In fact, few of them realize that installing Linux is no more difficult than Windows and, moreover, it is possible to use them together on one computer without any additional difficulties.
Before you begin the installation, you must select a Linux distribution.
Selecting a Linux distribution
Linux is an operating system kernel that uses the capabilities and developments of the Unix operating system. Linux is open source software. This property served as the main catalyst for the development of the popularity of the platform.
In its pure form, the Linux kernel is rarely used and more often serves as the basis for the creation of distributions that have different names and capabilities depending on the purpose of their use. The distribution consists of the Linux kernel and the applications that define its functionality.
The most popular distributions:
- Ubuntu tops the list of the most popular Linux distributions for servers. It can also be installed on workstations.
- Debian is a leader in application and library content;
- Parrot Linux is an indispensable distribution for system administrators:
- LXLE is based on Ubuntu 16.04 - the most compact in volume;
- Elementary OS is an excellent solution for workstations and laptops;
- Gentoo - for Linux connoisseurs, allowing the user to achieve individuality;
- Snappy Ubuntu Core - for IoT lovers;
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) - server distribution for corporate systems;
- CentOS - for small businesses, based on RHEL.
There are many other flavors of Linux that you can use for your work. Moreover, some distributions (Ubuntu, for example) can be used without installing directly from a USB drive. Such a drive can be carried with you and used on any computer. However, you need to understand that such use of the distribution significantly affects performance, especially if the installation is made on a flash drive.
If you have managed to decide on the choice of distribution, then the next step will be working with the disk. Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS will be used as an example
Preparing the Disk
First of all, you need to backup Windows. This will avoid unexpected troubles when making changes to the disk structure. To do this you need to use the Windows Control Panel
You can also create a Windows restore point using Control Panel. It is better to copy all important information (work files, music and videos) to external media.
Since we are talking about installing Linux next to Windows10 (or any other modern version of Windows), you will need to make changes to the partition structure of the system disk. This allows you to organize the contents of the file system, providing additional protection for valuable user information in the event of a system reinstallation, for example.
For the best performance of Linux, it is better to use several partitions: system, user and partition for the swap file.
To allocate space for new disk partitions, you need to open Disk Management. To do this, in Explorer, you need to right-click on the “This PC” icon. In the menu that opens, select “Computer Management”
Then in the window that opens, you need to select “Storage Devices” and “Disk Management”. In the list of drives below, you need to select drive C, and by clicking on the partition that will allocate space for Linux, right-click the menu item “Shrink volume”
A dialog box will pop up allowing you to determine the amount of space to free up.
by clicking the “Compress” button. At this stage, the preparation of the disk for installing Linux is complete. Now you need to move on to preparing a USB drive with the distribution kit.
Preparing a USB Drive
You will need a drive with a capacity of at least 1.5 GB to install Ubuntu 16.04.3. Other distributions will likely have different capacities. The process of creating a bootable USB drive will erase all data on it. This must be taken into account if there are important files on the drive.
After downloading the Ubuntu 16.04.3 ISO image from the official website, you need to transfer it to the installation drive using, for example, unetbootin for Windows. After launching this application, a window will open
in which you will be asked to select the distribution image and the drive where the image will be transferred. Confirmation of the start of recording is made using the “OK” button. After preparing the drive, you need to proceed to setting up the BIOS of the computer on which Linux will be installed.
BIOS setup
To configure the BIOS, you must restart the computer, and after the new startup has begun, you must enter the BIOS by pressing the key indicated in the startup startup screen (F2, Del or another). After entering the BIOS, you need to select the option to boot from a USB drive. It will look something like this:
After this, you need to make sure that the prepared drive with the distribution image is placed in the appropriate USB connector and proceed directly to the installation process.
Installing Linux (Ubuntu as an example). A little more work on the disc
If all preparations were successful, then after the reboot the boot disk will start and after a while a screen with different options for operating Linux will be available. You need to select the “Download without installation” option, since there is a need to carry out additional procedures with disk partitions. After booting Ubuntu, you need to type Gpart into the search field and then open the “Gparted partition editor” application, which can manage the disks.
The window that opens contains a list of disks, indicating their current parameters. If Windows 10 is already installed on your computer, it will occupy the first partition of the disk. Next will be the section for installing Linux. For drive C this will look like /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2, respectively. The designation sda2 indicates that:
- the first letter is this SATA, SCSI or USB drive (for IDE it will be hda2);
- the second letter is disk;
- the third is the serial letter of the physical disk;
- number - section number.
Similar to disk management in Windows, you need to allocate 10 GB from this space to place the system partition in this space. This is done using the "Resize/Move" menu option. In the newly appeared partition, you need to select another partition, leaving in it space for a partition with paging and hibernation files in an amount equal to the size of the computer’s RAM. If hibernation mode is not planned, then the volume of this section can be halved. The remaining space will be used for the user data section.
The result of working with the disk will be three partitions for Linux:
- /dev/sda2 - system;
- /dev/sda3 - swap file;
- /dev/sda4 - home.
To complete the procedure, select “Apply All Operations” from the “Edit” menu.
To avoid damage to the installed Windows, you should not do any operations with the /dev/sda1 partition at this stage.
After completing operations with the disk and its partitions, you need to restart the computer again and select the desired boot option in the Ubuntu screen that appears. After choosing to install the system, a dialog will appear that will check your network connection and offer to install third-party device drivers, after which you will be offered several installation options:
- “Install Ubuntu next to Windows 10” allows you to eliminate the work of creating additional partitions. The system will do this on its own.
- "Erase disk and install Ubuntu"
- “Other option” - a detailed installation option is offered.
The further scenario depends on the choice of these options, but leads to the appearance of a window in which you must specify user data: name and password, which are very important and must be remembered or written down. Next, the installation wizard will offer to transfer settings to Ubuntu from Windows credentials.
The next installation wizard window prompts you to make some additional settings and begin the installation. To do this, you must select the “Install” button. This will begin to copy the system files to disk and create the system. This will take some time, causing the following dialog box to appear asking you to restart your computer. Clicking on the “Reboot” button does a final reboot, after which you can start working with the installed Linux.
Installing Linux next to Windows 10 UEFI
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a new technology that is an interface between installed operating systems and the BIOS. It involves creating an additional disk partition that controls the computer's boot script. And the presence of Windows 10 installed on the computer indicates that such a partition most likely exists and at the time of installation you should select this partition to install the bootloader there.
Download Linux
Once the installation is complete and you reboot, the start screen will appear, and since Grub finds the Windows boot loader automatically, several boot options are provided that can be selected from the keyboard using the arrow keys and the Enter key:
- Ubuntu with automatic boot unless another option is selected;
- Recovery mode for Ubuntu;
- memory test;
- Windows.
If you have decided to install Ubuntu on your computer and are about to do it for the first time, or have done it before, but are not entirely confident in your abilities, this article will help you.
Although from the outside, installing Ubuntu (and not only) may seem like something complicated and incomprehensible, in reality it is not so. It's not more complicated. The most difficult things for a beginner are mainly just changing the boot order of the computer and partitioning the hard drive. The rest is mostly a matter of clicking Continue.
The article will discuss installing Ubuntu 18.04 next to Windows 10 on a computer in which the basic I/O system is BIOS.
To ensure that installing Ubuntu is not a simple repetition of instructions for you, but a conscious action, in the article, in some places, I will make digressions for clarification or reference. And if you're ready, let's get started!
Before installing Ubuntu, you first need to download the ".iso" system image and burn it to a disk or . To do this, go to the Ubuntu download page on the official website and select the distribution version.
Caninical releases a new version of the OS every six months - in April and October, this gives the version number: year.month. That is: Ubuntu 18.04 is the April 2018 release. In addition, each release has a code name consisting of two words: the name of the animal and its quality, which begin with the same letter. For example, the codename of the future Ubuntu 18.10 is Cosmic Cuttlefish.
Every two years, the April release of Ubuntu receives a long period of support, abbreviated LTS (Long Term Support). The LTS release support period is 5 years. Other versions of Ubuntu are supported for 9 months. In LTS releases, developers try not to include new unfinished components so that the version is as stable as possible. Therefore, all important innovations receive regular releases and then it is finalized to the new LTS. So, non-LTS releases can, to some extent, be called experimental.
Due to the fact that there are no fundamental differences between Ubuntu 18.04 and beta 18.10, and the former is an LTS release, I would recommend installing Ubuntu 18.04. However, if you want to use the latest Canonical developments, you can choose Ubuntu 18.10, but keep in mind that this is not yet a stable version.
When you have made your choice, click “Download”. You will be redirected to the donation page. If you don't want to thank the developers for their work, just don't do anything - the download will start automatically. Also on the download page you can see a link to “Alternative downloads”, where old versions of Ubuntu are available, as well as downloading via torrent, etc.
After downloading the image, it will need to be written to a disk or flash drive. As a result, we will get “Live CD” or “LiveUSB” depending on which media you choose.
LiveCD is an operating system that boots from removable media and does not require installation to disk. That is, the disk that you burn can be used not only for installing Ubuntu, but also for work if you are not able to boot the OS from your hard drive. Live systems get their name from the type of media on which they are installed: CD - LiveCD, DVD - LiveDVD, flash drive - LiveUSB etc.
When the LiveCD is ready, the only thing left is to boot the computer from the CD. Accordingly, if you use LiveUSB - USB.
BIOS setup
Changing the boot priority is done in the BIOS. Unfortunately, due to the fact that there are many versions of it and different motherboards use their own, it is impossible to describe this procedure for each computer.
In general terms, when the computer boots, in the first few seconds, you need to press a special key or key combination, often F2, F10, Esc, Del, in order to open the BIOS settings. Often, during loading, a message is displayed at the bottom of the screen indicating what to click. Next you need to find the Boot section and there is a list of available boot options. The required item must be put in first place and the settings saved. After this you can boot.
Here's an example of changing the boot priority of one of my laptops:
As soon as the laptop starts to boot, the manufacturer's logo appears for two seconds and the line appears in the lower left corner: Press F2 to enter Setup. After pressing F2, the BIOS settings open. There are five tabs at the top: Information, Main, Security, Boot, Exit. Using the left-right keys, go to the Boot tab. Here is the list Boot priority order and available options: IDE, HDD, CD/DVD, PCI LAN, USB HDD, USB CDROM.
In order for the laptop to boot from the CD, you need to use the up and down keys to go to the CD/DVD item and use the F6 key to move it to the first place. After that, press F10 to save the settings and exit the BIOS. A pop-up window will appear, click to confirm Enter. The laptop will start to boot.
Once the BIOS is configured, you can begin installing Ubuntu 18.04 next to Windows 10. Start the computer.
Installation
Ubuntu installer
An icon will appear at the bottom of the screen:
Press any key on the keyboard to select the installer language and press “Enter”.
The bootloader menu will appear:
We need to install Ubuntu, so we select the appropriate second item. The download will begin:
After some time, the system will boot and the installer window will open:
He will immediately offer to choose the language of the future system. Select Russian and click “Continue”.
Select and click “Continue”.
Then they offer to select a set of software - standard or minimal, installation of updates that have been released since the release of Ubuntu and codecs that are not included in the distribution by default due to licensing agreements:
Choose the software that suits you best: get a standard set (players, office package, games) and then remove what you don’t need, or choose the minimum set and install everything you need yourself. I'll leave the default selection. Also, if you have an Internet connection, you can check the installation of updates and codecs. Click “Continue”.
The next step is to select your Ubuntu installation type. The installer offers us three options:
- Install Ubuntu next to Windows 10— the program will select one of the partitions on the hard drive and prompt us to select the amount of memory for Ubuntu. After this, one partition will be created in the allocated space, on which the OS will be installed. In this case, Windows and all files will be saved. This option may be suitable for you if you do not want to go through the hassle of manually marking disks. But placing the system and user files on the same partition is not good. Therefore, this option is not recommended.
- Erase disk and install Ubuntu- everything on the hard drive will be deleted. One partition will also be created and the system will be installed on it. It is also better not to use this option.
- Another variant— we ourselves will need to create partitions for Ubuntu. The most complex option of the three proposed, but also the best, since we ourselves can indicate what needs to be installed and where. We choose him. Click Continue.
Disk partitioning
The markup program will start. We see that now the entire disk is divided into three ntfs partition, these are Windows volumes:
- sda1- a hidden partition that was created automatically during Windows installation;
- sda2— the partition on which Windows itself is installed (drive C);
- sda3— user files are located here (drive D);
For Ubuntu we will create two partitions:
- / - root. It will host Ubuntu itself;
- home- home directory. It will store your files: images, music, videos, etc. User program settings will also be stored here.
Previously, it was recommended to create a swap partition; it was used when the computer did not have enough RAM. But in Ubuntu 18.04, instead of a swap partition, a swap file is used by default, so we will not create a swap partition.
First you need to make room for future partitions. We will do this by reducing the size drive D.
Before any manipulations with the hard drive, make a copy of important data to another medium so that in case of errors you do not lose it.
Select the sda3 section and click the “Change” button.
The “Edit Partition” window will open:
- Size— I want to reduce this partition to 40GB. The rest of the space will be given to Ubuntu. Please note that the size of disk D is entered here, not the size that we want to free.
- Use as— NTFS journaled file system: since this is a Windows partition, we leave its native file system.
After selecting the file system, the format item became active and the “Mount point” field appeared.
- Format partition- we don’t celebrate. Otherwise, all data from this partition will be lost.
- Mount point- must be /windows but now it is not in the drop-down list. This is the folder where this volume will be mounted in Ubuntu. For now we leave the field empty
Click OK.
A warning window will appear, which means that if you continue, all changes will be made without the possibility of cancellation:
Click “Continue” and we see that 44GB of free space has appeared:
Once again, select the sda3 partition and click “Change”. In the window that opens, in the “Mount point” field, now select /windows and click “OK”:
After this, the corresponding label will appear next to the section:
Let's create a root partition. Select an empty space and click the plus sign below it:
The partition creation dialog will appear:
- Size— for Ubuntu you need about 5GB, plus the programs you installed and the swap file will be added to this. The result will be somewhere around 15GB. To be on the safe side, if you have the option, I would recommend 20GB.
- New partition type- logical. Due to limitations of the partition table, which stores disk partition information, more than 4 primary partitions cannot be created on a hard disk. You can create many logical ones.
- — the beginning of this space. So that the partition is closer to the beginning of the hard drive and not to the end.
- Use as— ext4 journaled file system. Ubuntu can work with the Windows file system, but since it is still not a native Linux file system, it is better to choose something more suitable. At the moment it is ext4.
- Mount point- /. A slash denotes the root partition.
Click OK. The operation will be completed.
We follow the same steps to create a home directory and set the following settings:
- Size— we give the remaining space to the home directory.
- New partition type- logical.
- Location of the new section— the beginning of this space.
- Use as— ext4 journaled file system.
- Mount point- /home.
Click OK. As a result, we ended up with five sections.
This completes the disk partitioning and you can continue with the installation. Click Install now.
A window will appear to confirm the changes:
Click “Continue” and the files will begin copying. At this time you will need to provide additional information.
Additional settings
Timezone:
And user details:
pay attention to Username, it's your login. Unlike your name, it must be written in Latin letters.
« your name"can also be written in Cyrillic, but since you cannot change the layout during installation, we write it in Latin letters.
You can also now set up automatic login if you don’t want to enter your credentials every time you log in. When you have filled out all the fields, click “Continue”.
This completes the Ubuntu setup; all that remains is to wait until all the files are copied and installed on the hard drive. While you wait, we will be shown a small presentation of the new Ubuntu.
Once the installation of Ubuntu 18.04 is complete, a window will appear asking you to restart your computer.
We agree.
This completes the installation of Ubuntu 18.04 next to Windows. When the computer turns off, the CD drive will open. Remove the disc, close the drive and press Enter. The computer will begin to reboot. Go into the BIOS and put booting from the hard drive back to first, save the settings and boot into Ubuntu.
There is also a video review in two parts on our YouTube channel about the last LTS release - Ubuntu 16.04. And although a lot has changed since then, the fundamental principle has not changed:
Next entry
No operating system is perfect. Ubuntu is no exception. Although it is a simple and easy-to-learn Linux distribution, it still has its drawbacks. For example, by default it lacks most popular media codecs and some other popular software. Although this is not critical, a new user may nevertheless experience difficulties at first due to this.
But in the Linux world there is a rule: if something doesn’t suit you, you can change it, or make your own. Clement Lefebvre took advantage of it. As a result, Linux Mint was born. Today this distribution is one of the most popular and, according to some data, it is even more popular than its parent - Ubuntu. And therefore, many are wondering how to install Linux Mint on a computer. Let's look at this process.
Download the distribution
In this guide, we will look at the process of installing Linux Mint 18 Sarah next to Windows 10. We will use the 64-bit version with the Cinnamon desktop environment
I previously wrote an article about how to install Linux after Windows, which is a fairly simple task. But many users uninstall Windows, install Linux, and then realize that they need Windows again. But installing Windows on a computer that already has Linux installed is a little more difficult.
When installing Linux, boot loaders for other operating systems are automatically detected and added to the boot menu. Thus, you do not need to configure anything additional to start your Windows. But if you install Windows on top of Linux, the Windows boot loader will be used, and you will not be able to access Linux without additional settings. However, this problem is completely solvable, and in today’s article we will talk about how to properly install Windows after Linux.
1. Disk partitioning in Linux
To install Windows 10 after Linux, you need free disk space of at least 50 gigabytes, or even more if you want to install a lot of games and programs there. Modern versions of Windows want to create two partitions:
- Systemic;
- Partition with recovery data;
But here you need to take into account one point: if you use an MBR partition table, then there can only be four main partitions. And if you already have a root partition, home partition and swap for Linux, then the recovery partition turns out to be the fifth, and this is already a problem, so you need to create an extended partition and mark up the partitions for Windows there. If you install this OS on another hard drive, then there are no problems, but I assume that both systems are installed on the same drive.
First, we need to boot from the LiveCD, since we need to reduce the size of either the root partition or the home partition, and these disks are mounted. The easiest way to do this is to boot from the Live system.
We load our disk, for example Ubuntu, and launch Gparted:
Then you need to reduce the partition. To do this, select the one you need and click Change or move:
Then shrink the partition so that there are 40-50 gigabytes left after it:
Remember, I wrote above that with the MBR partition table you can only create four main partitions. Therefore, we create an extended partition from free space. Select in the field Create as ->Advanced section:
Select all available space, and then click OK:
2. Disk partitioning in Windows
Now we need to figure out how to install Windows after Linux. I won't go through all the Windows Installer steps. You already know them. At the step of selecting a partition for installation, click on the free space that you prepared earlier. The system will not show extended partitions and other additional disk parameters, only the size, this is normal for it.
Then click the button Create and select the partition size. You can agree with what the installer suggests:
Then agree to create additional partitions for system files:
3. Recovering the Linux bootloader
Once you are on the Windows desktop, Windows will be finished and you will need to boot again from the Ubuntu LiveCD or Linux distribution you have installed. Next, we will follow the steps described in the article on restoring the Grub bootloader.
First we need to mount the root partition with Linux, in my case it is /dev/sda1:
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
If your /boot partition also exists separately, it also needs to be primortized. Then we connect the subsystems for interaction with the kernel in the /mnt folder, where we previously mounted the root:
sudo mount --bind /dev/ /mnt/dev/
sudo mount --bind /proc/ /mnt/proc/
sudo mount --bind /sys/ /mnt/sys/
And we go into the environment of our previously installed Linux using the chroot command:
sudo chroot /mnt/
grub-install /dev/sda
Then we will create a new configuration file, which will already contain our newly installed Windows:
Now Grub2 will be used as the bootloader and Ubuntu and Windows will be displayed in the list of operating systems, which is what we wanted:
conclusions
In this article, we looked at how to install Windows after Linux. This is a rather unusual situation, but for many users the information may be useful. Do you use Windows next to Linux? Write in the comments!