tkissing
Google is useless for this, so hopefully the Fediverse can help.
I have a PC with Windows 11 on one SSD and I want to install #linux on another SSD. I don't want to touch the current primary SSD at all, just boot from USB, install Linux, set that new SSD as primary boot partition in the #UEFI #BIOS and from then on have the Linux boot manager show up and let me choose which OS I want to boot. I use Linux, but haven't set up #DualBoot in literal decades. Any tips/guides for this specific case?
Apr 13 at 12:19pmMastodon for Android
Show threadWenAstar2d ago

@tkissing
Create USB-Stick
Set UEFI to boot the stick
Install Linux on second drive
Have UEFI boot drive #2

Grub should already have detected the Windows partition and be able to boot it.

(I have been doing this with Linux Mint and Fedora successfully in the past).

Show threadtkissing2d ago
@WenAstar No need to remove the windows drive physically, right? And the default if I choose an empty drive as target is for it to create an EFI partition?
Show threadWenAstar2d ago
@tkissing
EFI should be the default, yes. Be sure you know the name and designation of your target disk. Then you just install onto the correct drive. Just make sure to use the correct disk. Twice.
Show threadtkissing2d ago
@WenAstar Windows is on a 1TB disk, Linux will go on a different 1TB one. They are different models however (970 vs 990) and I'm taking pictures of the hardware IDs Windows shows me - between those details and the fact that one of them has 3 partitions already and the other doesn't, I hope I don't accidentally wipe my Windows. That's unfortunately not a goal yet due to Minecraft Bedrock (no, I don't want to emulate Android to play it thru that and WineGDK does not seem ready either)
Show threadMarcos Dione2d ago
@tkissing @WenAstar if you're really worried, you can unplug the Win disk, but that would mean fiddling with grub manually after. Depending on the distro that could go from easy to hard, as each has its own scripts around grub... or none.
Show threadtkissing2d ago
@mdione Yeah I'd rather not, both because I don't want to touch the hardware and because I don't like adding stuff to grub after. Fortunately the Bazzite installer seems to make this pretty safe
a) it shows the full drive display name and device id
b) it let's me mount the windows partition from the live environment and then tells me I can't install on a mounted drive
Show threadunknown7312d ago
@tkissing not a good solution but you can just remove the drive with the os you don't want. That way you won't have to even consider dual booting.
Show threadtkissing2d ago
@unknown231 I do want dual boot tho - with secure boot, in case I do play stuff with friends that requires that.
Show threadSara Angeloni 🏳️‍🌈🇪🇺2d ago
@tkissing Make sure you create a separate /boot/EFI partition ON THE LINUX SSD, and not use the #Microslop one. Be aware that Windows has been known to wreck the Linux EFI partition in the past, so that's what can happen, in which case you will need to reinstall the bootloader.
Give your / partition 45-60GiB, and create a separate /home partition with the rest of the space.