Doing first Dual boot install

mainframe 3330

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I hope I can have windows 7 and Pclinuxos64, kde5,2019.05 as dual boot on new 2012 hardware white box computer build. but not sure how to do it yet.
 


I've only done this with ubuntu so far, but the way I've done it was to download the iso files for the OS of your linux, then get a program called rufus to write it onto a flash drive as a bootable iso. from there when you start your computer have the drive plugged in and open your boot options and have it install the linux from the drive. You may want to back up your machine and make sure you have the partitions you'll need for the new OS.
 
I am doing dvd install, I do a windows custom install, save free space for Linux. I guess I need 1 partion mbr, 1 for Linux program, 1 for swap, 3 partions I use to do in past.
 
This is the way I do it on my desktop computers.

Windows on its own hard drive.

Linux on its own hard drive.

Install Windows on its own hard drive and then disconnect the Windows hard drive.

Install Linux on its own hard drive.

Reconnect all hard drives and restart computer.

You should get a screen which gives the option to choose which OS you want to boot in to.

You can also enter bios and set which hard drive you want as 1st boot.

This works for me on my 2010 desktops computers.

I'm uncertain if it will work on brand new desktop computers with all of the UEFI / EFI secure boot which my computers do not have.
 
This is the way I do it on my desktop computers.

Windows on its own hard drive.

Linux on its own hard drive.

Install Windows on its own hard drive and then disconnect the Windows hard drive.

Install Linux on its own hard drive.

Reconnect all hard drives and restart computer.

You should get a screen which gives the option to choose which OS you want to boot in to.

You can also enter bios and set which hard drive you want as 1st boot.

This works for me on my 2010 desktops computers.

I'm uncertain if it will work on brand new desktop computers with all of the UEFI / EFI secure boot which my computers do not have.
thanks for your reply, yes my motherboad has that secure boot stuff
 
You can install each OS to their own hard drive, and this is probably the preferred way, but you don't have to. The reason this might be preferred is that one time I seem to recall, Windows realized that it wasn't master of the MBR and refused to install an update or something. It was many years ago, can't recall if it was XP time or early 7. Anyway, if you have each on their own drive, you can tell Windows that it's in charge of it's own HD's MBR but tell the BIOS to boot to the Linux drive and then if there's any issues you can go into the BIOS and swap drives as primary. But like I said, you don't have to. You can have both on one drive. Your partition quantities will depend on the type and age of your computer. If you have an older one, that still uses BIOS, you need a minumum of 2 (1 for Windows, 1 for Linux). If you have a newer one that uses UEFI, then you need a minimum of 3 (1 for EFI [should already exist], 1 for Windows and 1 for Linux). You should also have Swap, and in my opinion /boot as well. I like keeping boot separate from / because sometimes I multi-boot other Linux OSs and it's simpler if they share the same /boot partition. Otherwise you have several and then if you decide to delete one of the installations you don't have to worry about which one is notated in the MBR. Swap should be equal to the amount of RAM and Boot can be 1 gig.

You should also disable Secure Boot. Some distros have trouble with it and Windows does not require it. Either boot option works with newer computers. I bought my laptop about a year and a half ago and can go into the UEFI and swap primary boot devices without issue. I only need to do this when repeatedly booting to USB. However, one thing this puppy has that I never expected is that you can select which partition to boot to in the UEFI. When I got it, it had WIndows pre-installed. Windows was the only option in this boot field. Then I installed Neon on it and then it had 2 options in UEFI (not the Grub menu), then I installed Fedora and it had 3. Unfortunately when I deleted the Fedora partition, UEFI still had 3 but I was able to clear it. Not important, just thought it was interesting and wanted to share :).
 
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Thanks for your reply, I might try it your way.
This is the way I do it on my desktop computers.

Windows on its own hard drive.

Linux on its own hard drive.

Install Windows on its own hard drive and then disconnect the Windows hard drive.

Install Linux on its own hard drive.

Reconnect all hard drives and restart computer.

You should get a screen which gives the option to choose which OS you want to boot in to.

You can also enter bios and set which hard drive you want as 1st boot.

This works for me on my 2010 desktops computers.

I'm uncertain if it will work on brand new desktop computers with all of the UEFI / EFI secure boot which my computers do not have.
 

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