instalation basic help

RobTi · 7 May 2019 at 06:59

Hi i have dipped into Linux (ubuntu and mint) and after some problems with grub i have decided to install a new distro (not chosen yet), so it will be a dual boot with windows 10 on a M2 NVMe and Linux on a 320Gb hard drive, so where do i instal grub i.e.,on which drive ( been reading and its not clear some say one drive others say the opposite, would like grub to flash up for a certain time then boot straight into windows for the time being) what sizes would you split the drive up with for linux (home,root,swap) and do i really need to disconnect the windows drive for installing Linux (and do you know a way other than removing it).
Sorry for all the questions but dont want to do it then find out i was wrong

Hades · 7 May 2019 at 08:09

I personally prefer to keep the two separate and switch between them by changing the boot drive in the BIOS. For this reason I disconnected the Windows drive when I installed Linix so that I could not accidentally overwrite it.

Hiqever it sounds like you would prefer to keep them installed in parallel. So to get GRUB to know about windows and give you the option to boot between the two then you will need to leave the Windows drive connected and install GRUB on the same drive as you currently boot from.

RobTi · 7 May 2019 at 08:28

Hades said:
I personally prefer to keep the two separate and switch between them by changing the boot drive in the BIOS. For this reason I disconnected the Windows drive when I installed Linix so that I could not accidentally overwrite it.

Hiqever it sounds like you would prefer to keep them installed in parallel. So to get GRUB to know about windows and give you the option to boot between the two then you will need to leave the Windows drive connected and install GRUB on the same drive as you currently boot from.

Can I ask why you didn’t want grub ?

Hades · 7 May 2019 at 09:11

RobTi said:
Can I ask why you didn’t want grub ?

I still use GRUB but it's installed on the drive I have Linux on. I have two separate drives. I did that so that there is less chance of a futre Windows update overwriting my Linux boot partition accidentally (never happened to mr but I have heard it can happen). It also makes it simpler to remove one OS in the future if I want to.

So I have a Windows SSD and a Linux SSD and switch between them in the BIOS instead.

RobTi · 8 May 2019 at 08:27

Thanks just decided to unplug all my drives and let mint run its course

The1nonly1 · 9 May 2019 at 15:16

I unplugged all other drives and installed Ubuntu, did all the upgrades, set the linux drive to boot first and grub picked up my windows drive and I could choose either from grub.