Linux Lite 4.2 dualbooting on new desktop with windows 10

[ronjnk]

Hello Forum,

I've been a Linux Lite user since the 2.? series. It has always been installed alone on a small desk top computer. I have bought a new Lenovo M720 with 240G SSD and 500G hard drive. It has not arrived yet. It has windows 10 on it. Linux Lite would be my main OS with windows sometimes used.

I've spent literally 20 hours researching, reading and watching youtube videos on partitioning schemes and dual booting windows 10 and Linux. I'm still baffled and have a few questions to start.

1. Is LL 4.2 compatible with windows EUFI? Or do I need to monkey with legacy BIOS?

2. My old computer has an 80G hard drive which is full. I have more to put on that drive but can't. No more room. (movies and photos take a great deal of the space)  Since the new computer has both a 240 SSD and 500G HD I would value opinions on what partitioning schemes make the most sense with the hard drives I have available versus the large amount of data I will store versus having LL and windows as a dual boot.

3. I am not a computer whiz and don't want to get involved figuring out virtual machines etc. I simply would like my new computer to run LL4.2 mostly and when the need arises to use windows, I have that available. Ultimately, it would be wonderful if I was able to have one Home/Users folder where all my documents, videos, images were stored but available to both systems. Is this doable without smoking my new computer, frying my brain or hacking in the terminal?  Is this all relatively straight forward to boot a dual system?

Thanks so much for any input you folks might have. All the best. Ron

[firenice03]

[member=5241]ronjnk[/member]
Typically with an SSD and HD option you want to install the OS and Apps to the SSD with files, pictures etc on the HD, ie. as a "/Data" storage (however named)

This allows the the OS and Apps make use of the additional disk read/write speeds of the SSD.

You could easily run Winders and LL on the SSD and use the HD as a file storage system, which would (should be) accessible by both OS's.
The SSD could be halved or so depending.  --- This would be the route I would go, and will focus as such...
You could do LL on the HD and Winders on the SSD - but why not let LL use the added SPEED

So UEFI - There is a uefi LL build, there's a link on the downloads page and within the forums. It's "experimental" but I am running and ran other versions just fine.. https://www.freecinema2022.gq/forums/linux...d-test/128

When you have the laptop; you'll want to shrink the Windows partition (you may get error/message it can't be - you'll need to turn some stuff off.
Once its shrunk, boot the LL LiveUSB and start the installer.. You'll choose "Something Else"
Create a partition on the SSD that you'll use/designate for root "/" where LL is installed. (leave 1-2gb or so depending on how much ram you have for SWAP).
- I'll post a link with further instructions on the above...
Create SWAP and designate as such (there is a drop down where it can be labeled. This partitioning is gparted you've probably seen/used...
I like to but the boot loaded in the same partition (lets say sdf1 for "/" sdf2 for "swap" place bootloader on sdf)


It will format and continue with install...

Sounds harder than it is.. The below link are mostly extending disks but incorporates shrinking the Windows partition

[size=1em]https://www.freecinema2022.gq/forums/insta...lp-manual/[/size]

[size=1em]https://www.freecinema2022.gq/forums/insta.../#msg44683[/size]

[ronjnk]

Thank you firenice03. I  will browse those links you suggested. I've read quite a bit about shrinking volumes in windows beforehand and I've used Gparted before. But I was not aware of the experimental UEFI version. Cool man cool.

I like the idea of splitting the SSD for the two OS. It bothered me that it seems like a lot of wasted space to have windows using 120 G and LL using 120 G and then having all storage on the HD. I guess in hindsight, I should have ordered the desktop with 120 G  SSD. Although maybe with all the extra unused space, that SSD will last even longer?

The boot loader part is the most confusing. Seems like a lot of things can go wrong dealing with the boot loader. In the past, I simply installed LL on my system and was done. With the dual boot, I've not seen the options and menus associated with this configuration and I assume there must be a bit of text asking where to put the boot and hopefully it becomes clear what I should do at that point. I'll just have to try it and see what happens.

The other thing that I'm worried about is setting Linux and windows to use the same data folders on the hard drive. Maybe no big deal. Uncertain when the new computer will be delivered but once it comes I'll tackle the dual boot. Probably another week or so. I'll leave this post open for a few days and then close it. If I have problems, I'll open a new thread. Thanks again! Have a good weekend.

[firenice03]

[member=5241]ronjnk[/member]

For the boot.. since same disk, probably not a big deal... Its my preference, but mine also runs LL on a SDcard vs the internal MMC.. I do it should I delete that partition later it removed the bootloader...
My others are solely LL...

As for the HD aka data - shared storage.. it should be fine, if just for file storage or similar. No different than any other "share". Applications if installed to the data drive wouldn't run across both OS's. May want to use 'ext4' format vs. 'ntfs' but I think it'll be fine either way.

No worries, have a good weekend too!!!

[trinidad]

If you plan on using Windows 10 for any length of time, with backups, 240G is about right (a little small) 120G would certainly be minimal, (need to be set for daily defrag) I won't install Windows 10 pro on anything smaller than a 500G HDD in the shop. I'd put LL on the last partition of the HDD (150G is much more than enough)) not the SSD and if your RAM exceeds 4G definitely use a swap file (default) not a swap partition. Swap is not particularly important for LL if you have 8G of RAM or more. Backup is important for Windows 10, as its OEM partitioning scheme. To give you some perspective, my biggest Debian system with everything imaginable including two other virtual Linux systems and a backup Apache web server is only about 35G on the disk. LL will probably not grow beyond 10G with everyday use. Your Windows 10 system will certainly grow to at least 150G over time and backups accordingly with it. The SSD / HDD speed difference matters more to Windows than LL. Just my opinion here, but it is a new machine with an OEM Windows 10 installation that you indicate you intend to use. I have a brand new Windows 10 Pro HP i7 with 16G RAM and a 1T SSD and a 1T HDD with high end accounting software on it. My five year old AMD 1.5T HDD with  8G RAM runs Debian twice as fast or more as Windows on that new machine. It's best to nursemaid your Windows system, and just expect your LL system to do what you want and do it faster.

TC

[ronjnk]

Hello Trinidad, Thanks so much for offering your thoughts. I've needed to make a bunch of movies over time and I had a great deal of trouble with Openshot. It kept crashing. I ultimately bought some movie making software for Windows. As well, I need to do some mapping on Garmin software which is as far as I know, only windows based. So the vast majority of use will be with Linux. Windows only on occasion.

I'm uncertain what I will end up installing. Another helpful poster pointed me in the direction of the EUFI experimental version. But the last I read, there was a folder missing bug and Jerry was going to look into it. I think trying to dual boot with an experimental system for someone who is somewhat inexperienced is going to get me in trouble.

So I'm still ciphering this out. I'm obviously not  understanding something. With all the newer windows 10 based EUFI computers on the market, I don't understand why all Linux distros are not compatible with the technology. Am I forced to find a distro that is EUFI compatible? Or is an option to disable EUFI by going to legacy BIOS and then it's a simple matter of installing any Linux system? It's a confusing mess this EUFI compatibility and how many options I have in choosing a Linux install. Anyways, thanks again. Ron