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Thread ID: 137626 2014-07-31 06:33:00 Couple more Linux question ianhnz (4263) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
1380418 2014-07-31 10:51:00 I might be getting confused but descriptions above seem too complicated for what was seemless setup.

I have a desktop which had window 7 installed on it.

Wanted to install Ubuntu 12.04 in dual boot setup. So I downloaded it made a live USB stick with ubuntu on it.

Rebooted pc with USB stick as primary drive, up popped ubuntu. Clicked on install, selected install in parallel to windows...

And that's it.

It created a partition of the size I wanted, installed ubuntu onto it.
On booting the pc, a flash screen asks which os to load and away you go.

Been running two os on one hard drive for last 2 years.

A.
afe66 (13778)
1380419 2014-07-31 10:58:00 So you must have had spare space on the disk or made spare space? If you don' t have spare space then it does get a little bit more complicated. johnd (85)
1380420 2014-07-31 10:59:00 Yes it's not that hard if you already have windows installed.

hubpages.com

One of many such guides found on google.
Driftwood (5551)
1380421 2014-07-31 11:30:00 Why not consider installing VirtualBox and a virtual install of Linux - for most situations this does the job and is a lot less likely to cause any disaster! Thats a good suggestion :thumbs: Thats what I got here, takes a bit to stuff it up. The best part once you make the VM, you can take a copy of it, save it someplace, and at any time if it turns pear shaped you simply drop the copy back and away you go again.

In VirtualBox you have the options to make the VM's,as it says when creating - Make the drive dynamic - meaning only uses what it needs and grows as you use it.

This PC has Windows 8 as the main OS, with VM's of W7, XP , and Linux. Not a single duel boot in sight ;)
wainuitech (129)
1380422 2014-07-31 23:23:00 Woah yeah I'm with afe66, some 20+ replies and we're still no closer on what's a relatively simple procedure?

1) If you have a spare HDD, that's not being used, install Linux on to that. Let it fully wipe the disk.
2) If you don't, you'll need to live-boot into Mint (Or Ubuntu, or whatever) and shrink one of the partitions so there is "unpartitioned space". THEN, begin the install, and when prompted, select that free space to install to.

When installing, Linux will see you already have Windows installed and automatically setup the dual-boot.

The whole process should only take about 20 minutes, not including the repartitioning (Slow HDDs can take ages).
Chilling_Silence (9)
1380423 2014-08-03 06:10:00 I have just done last week what the OP wants - on a PC with Win7 on it, I booted off a Mint17 DVD and clicked the "install to HD" option.
It then asked me whether to keep Win7 or overwrite it - I choose to keep Win7 and Mint then setup a new partition (which I could choose the size of) and installed it all.

Now when I start up my PC I get a choice of Mint or Win7. - no problemo !
decibel (11645)
1380424 2014-08-04 02:49:00 Sweeeeeet! :) Chilling_Silence (9)
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