Dual booting Linux on a Windows computer

It’s easier than it used to be, but installations still make me anxious.

A few episodes back, I said that I might install Linux Mint Cinnamon on my primary Windows computer. Now I’ve done that. The process created anxiety, but was successful. The technique nearly guaranteed success.

Although Linux can be installed on the same disk as Windows, that’s not the best method. There are at least two problems with dual booting operating systems on a single disk drive: First, Windows updates are notorious for demolishing the Grub boot loader and leaving dual-boot users with a computer that can’t boot Windows or Linux. And second, if you decide you no longer want Linux, it’s harder to get rid of when it’s on the same disk as Windows.

I had a spare solid-state drive in a portable case and was using it as a giant thumb drive. There was no justification for a 1TB thumb drive, so I removed it from the case and installed it in the Lenovo Think Pad.

Because I knew that power and external devices would need to be disconnected, the first thing I did was label all the connections.

Lenovo makes the installation process relatively easy for second and third SSDs. Remove the cover on the bottom of the case, remove a screw that’s designed to hold the M.2 SSD in place, insert the M.2 drive, replace and tighten the screw, replace the cover, and restart the computer. Easy.

I had formatted the drive that I would use for Linux and it showed up in the Windows file explorer.

So the next step involved creating a bootable USB thumb drive with the Mint ISO image file and a utility called Rufus. The process takes just a few minutes.

With all the necessities in hand, it was time to boot to the USB drive and launch Mint. Once Mint is running from the thumb drive, the user chooses the Install icon on the desktop, and this is where the anxiety begins. You need to specify where Linux will be installed and the primary computer had eight drives attached. The descriptions aren’t particularly useful and installing Linux on the wrong drive might not be disastrous, but it would result in many hours of recovery work.

After shutting the computer down, I disconnected all drives other than the one Windows is installed on and the one I wanted to use for Linux. I could then guess and have a 50/50 chance of getting it right. Not good enough. After rebooting to Windows, I examined disk properties in the disk manager. With that information, I restarted Linux from the thumb drive, identified the correct disk, and installed Linux Mint.

And, if you’re wondering, I would have installed Linux on the wrong disk drive in that 50/50 guess scenario.

I wrote this report while running Linux and saved it to one of the computer’s Windows drives. Yes, Linux can see, read, and write any of the installed drives that Windows uses. By default, though, Windows can’t see the Linux drive. I might change that someday, but using the Windows data drives while running Linux is sufficient.

If you’d like to give Linux a try, see this video from Explaining Computers.

It illustrates both dual-boot/single-drive and dual-boot/dual-drive processes.

One minor annoyance if you install Linux while the Windows drive is attached, is that Linux will add itself as the default choice in the computer’s BIOS. Fixing this is easy, though, and now Windows starts automatically. That’s the “normal” process for this computer. Even though I’ve been using Linux about half of the day most of the time, I still consider Windows my primary operating system so I need to access the boot menu manually only to start Linux.

I have to switch back to Windows at least once a day for some scheduled processes like backup that requires Windows to be running. The most significant disadvantage to dual booting is that the process of switching from one operating system to the other takes a few minutes. In other words, it’s not a big deal.

Currently there’s little standing between me and a Linux-only life. Although Libre Office would be sufficient for my needs, nothing in the Linux galaxy could replace Adobe’s photography applications. Someday maybe, but not yet.