Re: double-boot laptop with Debian Trixie
On 12/28/24 16:20, Rafał Lichwała wrote:
Hi,
I plan to switch completely from Windows 11 to Debian on my laptop,
Make? Dell, below. It is better to state this information at the top
of your message.
Model?
but
as a first step I'd like to configure double-boot setup to give it a
try, look around and check if all hardware works fine under Debian.
I recommend that you use Debian Live "Statble" to test hardware
compatibility.:
https://www.debian.org/CD/live/
Current state:
Dell laptop (one NVMe disk only) with Windows 11 onboard.
Windows starts in UEFI mode (Secure Boot ON).
Already resized main partition to make space for Debian.
So currently there are the following partitions on disk:
100MB, FAT32, GPT (EFI System Partition)
16MB, Other, GPT (Reserved Partition)
300GB, NTFS, GPT (Data Partition) (Main C: disk visible under Win11)
168GB, free space, ready to have ~150GB for Debian and 16GB for swap
880MB, NTFS, GPT (Recovery Partition)
Manual transcription is error prone. It is better to cut and paste a
console session showing the exact prompt, command entered, and output
displayed.
First try:
UEFI Boot (Secure Boot ON), Debian Trixie, Expert mode installation
Trixie is still in testing:
https://www.debian.org/releases/trixie/
It is better to use Stable (or Old Stable).
During installation Debian does NOT see my disk at all (pendrive with
Debian Trixie is visible only)
On my Dell machines with NVMe drives, I must change the Setup settings
for Debian to see NVMe drives:
-> Settings
-> System Configuration
-> SATA Operation -> AHCI
Also during installation Debian says that "it seems there is another
system installed in Legacy Mode, am I sure to force UEFI mode?" which
is not correct - Win11 is installed in UEFI mode (when I try to boot it
in Legacy Mode I get Windows Blue Screen Of Death)
Second try:
Secure Boot set to OFF.
Nothing changed during Trixie installation, so no device to install on.
Third try:
Boot in Legacy Mode (so Secure Boot is OFF).
Debian Trixie can see my laptop disk properly, so installation is
successful, but...
It cannot see my Windows 11 installation when trying to install/
configure/prepare GRUB.
At this step I decided to NOT install GRUB on my main disk to NOT loose
access to my Windows 11 system.
(but Trixie says that it's possible to restore access by manual
configuration of GRUB later on - I'm not sure...)
Main goal:
To have both current Windows 11 and new Debian Trixie available in GRUB
and properly bootable.
How to achieve this? :-)
Thank you,
Best Regards,
Rafal
It is best to take an image of the system drive before making
significant changes. I recommend that you do so now, before making
further changes.
I recommend that you get Windows 11 working again, use Windows Disk
Management remove the partitions created by d-i, create a partition and
filesystem for virtual machines in the empty space, install your
hypervisor of choice, create a VM, and install Debian Stable into the VM.
David
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