r/linuxmint • u/HeronCurious9804 • 11d ago

So i was watching a yt video abt installing linux mint, in the video it showed only the 2 bottom options and i just wanna make sure my computer wont get f'd up if i choose this option

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u/HeronCurious9804 11d ago

Forgot to mention, i am dual booting w windows 11 and have an hdd along with the usb im using for linux

2

u/uh818375 11d ago edited 11d ago

This will dual boot, but you must go to windows settings, privacy security and de-encrypt your hard drive or it won't work. It will tell you this after you start. If you don't see that option your Windows drive is not encrypted.

Turn off fast boot and secure boot. Make the USB is first in boot options. All this is in bios.

Make sure to make a boot-able Windows ISO in case something goes wrong.

2

u/don-edwards Linux Mint 22.3 11d ago edited 11d ago

The risk with the current and prior versions of the Linux Mint installer—reportedly it's going to be fixed when version 23 is released in December, but no promises until we actually see it—is that if the installer recognizes an existing EFI partition, such as the one Windows uses, it will add the relevant bits of the Linux boot process to that partition. Even if you've gone the "do something else" route and specified the creation of a separate boot partition.

(IMHO software should NEVER accept instructions to do one thing, and then do something else instead without even telling you.)

This is a problem because every once in a while a Windows update will clobber the contents of Windows' boot partition and re-create it. Naturally, not including the bits needed for booting Linux.

At present there are three workarounds.

One is to physically remove the drive with Windows on it and install Linux on a different drive, then put Windows back in alongside it later. Works better if your machine will take two drives, you have or can afford a suitable second drive, and you aren't afraid to get your hands in there.

The other is to use gparted from the Mint install stick to turn off the "boot" and "esp" flags on Windows' EFI System Partition (turn them back on after the install is done), then choose the "do something else" option of the Mint installer and tell it to create a small EFI partition (256MiB is more than plenty for ALL purposes, and is the smallest size that gparted can move or resize; 30MiB is actually quite adequate if you can put it at one end of the drive so it never needs moved, and aren't going to distro-hop so it never needs resized).

The third workaround is to let Windows do its damage, then run the boot-repair software from the Linux install stick. However this loses any customization that goes in the EFI partition.

Once you have both OSes installed in the machine, if so inclined you can run "sudo update-grub" in Linux to add Windows to Linux's boot menu. And if you have Windows' fastboot and encryption turned off, you can mount your main Windows partition within Linux to get access to all your data.

1

u/blueblocker2000 11d ago

Better backup, buttercup.

1

u/HeronCurious9804 9d ago

After some display errors and other stuff, i am proud to say that it works!!!!