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Dual booting Linux?

MelvinZ
Level 8
Hey guys,

I was wondering if anyone here has any experience with Linux cause I've been trying to install Linux on my GL551JW for a while now, specifically Ubuntu, and I can't seem to get it to work. I've tried 14.04 and 15.04, and for some reason the 15.04 disk won't even work properly. So for now I'll just tell you what happened with the 14.04 disk.

I loaded it up, went through the settings and all that, and when it came time to ask me how to install it, the only option was to either erase the disk, which would presumably delete my Windows copy, or to try setting up my own partitions. Naturally I tried setting my own partitions as I did not want to delete the clean install of Windows 10 I just did. However, this wouldn't work either as when I finally figured out what was going on with the partition menue to some extent, the program told me there was no root directory and I could not install Ubuntu.

For the record I have disabled secure boot, but I am still very new to this whole thing so some partition things don't really make sense to me yet. If you need any more information I'd be happy to provide whatever else I can. I'd really appreciate any help anyone can give me. Thanks in advance!
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20 REPLIES 20

MelvinZ
Level 8
So it turns out I wasn't mounting the partition properly, but my problem now is that Ubuntu is not recognizing that I have Windows installed. It keeps telling me that my 128 gig ssd is empty space and tells me it will format the drive if I continue further. Anyone have any ideas?

On a side note, before I did the clean install of Windows 10 Ubuntu was saying that I had windows vista installed and not Windows 10. Idk if this is at all relevant because that is no longer the case, but I thought it might help. Thanks for any help you can give in advance.

joshindaphils
Level 11
Just out of curiosity what is your use case that a virtual machine is not sufficient?

joshindaphils wrote:
Just out of curiosity what is your use case that a virtual machine is not sufficient?


perf. discount, i believe

TugaPower
Level 8
Create the partitions over the Windows Disk Manager. Then in Linux install mannually choosing the partitions you created, to keep things clear create 3 partitions in the following order: root , swap , home
No need to disable secure boot, my only advise it's to disable fastboot.

joshindaphils wrote:
Just out of curiosity what is your use case that a virtual machine is not sufficient?


I prefer to just dual run so I can bypass windows entirely if I want. I plan on using both pretty regularly, but I don't wanna have to use a virtual machine and use all those resources to run the machine just so I can run Linux. At least that's my idea with my meager understnding of VM's.

TugaPower wrote:
Create the partitions over the Windows Disk Manager. Then in Linux install mannually choosing the partitions you created, to keep things clear create 3 partitions in the following order: root , swap , home
No need to disable secure boot, my only advise it's to disable fastboot.


Thanks for the tip, I'll try it and report back. The only problem I can see is the installer just not recognizing any of those partitions like it wasn't recognizing the windows ones before, but I'll give it a shot and see. any advice on how big to make each partition if I have about 50 gigs I wanna use?

MelvinZ wrote:
I prefer to just dual run so I can bypass windows entirely if I want. I plan on using both pretty regularly, but I don't wanna have to use a virtual machine and use all those resources to run the machine just so I can run Linux. At least that's my idea with my meager understudying of VM's.


I used to dual boot, then for a while I was vitalizing my Windows install.

For me the convenience of not having to reboot or fully duplicate all of my services (email, IM, etc) far out weighs the performance loss and overhead (rather minimal IMO depending on what you concern is). Unless you have workflows that really tax the system and you need that full performance I do recommend you give visualization a try there are many additional benefits like snapshots, cloning etc.

While I do prefer VMWare I can't justify the cost personally so I use Virtualbox it is 100% free to use and the VMs are easily migrated across environments.

beststevie
Level 7
Hi,

although win10 seems to works fine with G751JT with all these little entries in the windows hosts file and "shutup"-tools to configure it more
like a user - OS, I prefer dual-boot with linux. I'm just a poor user - no Linux guru - but I got it work. With older LTS distributions there's a
buck with GTX 970 nouveau driver or so, so I took Ubuntu Mate 15.04.

I just take a standard fresh install on SSD with win10. I let 60GB free for Linux. Then I start the install from USB after I disabled Secure Boot.

Then I start to setup Linux and choose the custom method for partitioning. I take 56GBs for / and 4GB for swap (swap shouldn't be smaller for
VMware with Windows ;)). Then I start installation. At the end I reboot to Bios and setup Secure - Boot again. That's it.

But Windows is still the best choice to play Games newer than Quake 4 ;).


cheers

steve

MelvinZ
Level 8
Thanks for the guide steve, but the problem is that Ubuntu is not recognizing I have any partitions on the SSD. Just tried making another one in the windows partitioner and that didn't work either. When I'm in the ubuntu installer it says all I have is 128GB of free space. believe me I'd try what you said if I could, but I'm worried about accidentally overwriting my Windows.

As for Josh, I know how to dual boot right now cause I've been using a really crappy desktop for the past 4 years from 2004 with XP, 4 gigs of ram, and a 1GHz dual core AMD processor, so needless to say windows didn't work very well. Because of that I started dual booting Ubuntu so I didn't have to worry about windows and if for some reason I needed it I could still use it. As a result I really don't know much about VM's, so I'll have to look into them more before I try them. Right now though I'd rather just dual boot cause that's what I know best.

Thanks for the replies though, I'll post back if I figure anything else out. And I'd definitely appreciate more help, I need all I can get!

beststevie
Level 7
Hi,

I've my good old notebook with a 120GB SSD. It has only 40GB for LInux, but it's quiet enough. I have some VMs for things like mail, sozial networking and so on. I use VMware as well as Virualbox. I gave up using this Notebook for professional work. I already had 3 RMAs with it.

You should do a full backup for e.g. with Acronis. If you're beginner with Linux you have to.

I only reached the goal of total data loss by using the wizards. So never use Linux wizards.

You could use visualization for testing.

Maybe you try another distribution like Opensuse or so. Just to see, if you encounter the same problems. Do you use a DVD? I often got problems, because the media was broken.

check it out

steve