Re: Dual booting Debian on an Windows machine.
On Sat, 30 Apr 2022 09:09:19 -0500
Richard Owlett <rcowlett@cloud85.net> wrote:
> Thanks for a quick reply.
>
> On 04/30/2022 07:23 AM, Christian Britz wrote:
> > Generally it is easier to install Windows first, then Debian, but of
> > course it is possible the other way round.
>
> My post evidently could have been clearer.
> My friend's laptop will be purchased with Windows pre-installed.
> I will set it up to dual boot Debian in order to demonstrate some
> Linux software.
>
> It will be a refurbished unit. To simplify having any required
> servicing done by the vendor, the installed Windows must remain.
>
> As the only Windows computer I've added Debian to was back in days of
> Squeeze. Never having with UEFI nor Secure Boot I did a brief web
> search.
>
> What I found wasn't well written and was not specifically Debian
> oriented. Reading your post suggests I've forgotten things and know
> less than I thought about recent hardware/software.
>
>
You've had the usual variety of suggestions, all of them good in
slightly differing circumstances.
Here's a case history:
I bought a 'refurbished' netbook containing Windows 10 about two years
ago. It had a hardwired 32GB SSD (not actually large enough for Windows
to do its out-of-box first upgrade without the temporary help of an
external USB drive) and internal space for a real laptop hard drive. The
installation was UEFI.
I was prepared to wipe Windows and start from there, but just for a
laugh I ran the Stretch netinstall and told it to install to the new
additional hard drive.
Well, the damn thing created a perfect UEFI dual-boot. Just like that.
Sadly the effect was spoiled somewhat when I later upgraded to Buster,
which stopped the computer booting at all without manual intervention
to the UEFI boot menu, and even then would only boot to Windows. I
spent quite a lot of time (including a fresh install of Buster) trying
to fix this, but to no avail. To this day, if I boot into Windows, I
then need to used a netinstall disc in rescue mode to get grub booted
again.
To complicate matters, the netbook UEFI implementation has at least
two problems: it implements NextBoot but not DefaultBoot, and when I
edit the UEFI boot menu, on its next boot it restores the Windows drive
to the default entry (and then fails to find it!) so it is entirely
possible that with a decent UEFI firmware, there might still not be any
problem. I'd love to know how Stretch got it right first time, though.
So I'm adding a warning here: do not assume the UEFI firmware of this
laptop is implemented correctly. Spend some time searching for UEFI
issues with the model before beginning work. My netbook is an Acer, and
apart from this issue is a wonderful machine, but Acer is notorious for
BIOS/UEFI issues, and slow to issue upgrades, if ever.
--
Joe
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