How to dual boot?

Confused_nerd

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I have linux mint 20.1 cinnamon edition.
I want to dual boot with parrotsec OS, however I have no idea how, so I am seeking help.
What should I do? Thanks.

I have a usb stick burned with the iso file already.
 


Ok lets look at this from a birds eye view. First what do you have now ?

eg

Whats the output of say :

Code:
sudo
parted /dev/sda print

here's mine :

Code:
bash-5.0#  parted /dev/sda print
Model: ATA BHT WR202I0064G (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 62.5GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name  Flags
1      1049kB  106MB   105MB   fat32           efi   boot, esp
2      106MB   3233MB  3127MB  linux-swap(v1)        swap
3      3233MB  62.5GB  59.3GB  ext4

that tells me a few things partition table is gpt and i have an esp partition.

Now you probably installed Mint using the installed gui and chose "use entire disk" ?

So what you would aim for if your hd is similar to mine is leave the swap partition ( you might not have one , but have a swap file instead) leave the efi partition. Now if you used the entire disk for Mint then you might have to consider shrinking that to make room for parrot.

Couple of things , you could instead maybe run parrot live from a usb with persistence and avoid install to hd. If your PC is a tower you might consider another hd on one of the spare sata connections on motherboard.

But if you have say /dev/sda1 ( efi). /dev/sda2 (swap) and /dev/sda3 (mint) then you might aim to shrink /dev/sda3 and of the portion left create a /dev/sda4 partition. Then you would choose install of Parrot to /dev/sda4 . In the last stages of install grub is re-installed and you update grub to update menu to include the Mint OS

I think you could try gParted to shrink /dev/sda3 (but how big is /dev/sda3 and is it feasible to shrink ?) it says something to the effect will try to do shrink partition cleanly and without loss, which means it might not . Timeshift i don't have but those using Debian , kali , Mint can have it. I don't know if you did a backup it would also revert the partition to as it was. I'm sure others will do a clarification on that


But that s the basics once partitions have been set up, it a matter of booting from usb and installing.
 
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