How to Dual Boot Linux Mint and Windows 8 on Same PC

If you love to work with dual operating systems, you may find the combination of Windows 8 and Linux Mint as better alternative than any other combination.  This article will allow readers to learn about getting most from both operating systems by dual-booting Linux Mint with Windows 8 installation.

Requirements:

You need to have following things before starting the process described in this article.

1. You need free space (10GB) on your hard drive.

2. You need a Linux Mint operating system ( x32 or x64) that is burnt to a DVD.

3. The process will take at least 30 minutes, so your equivalent free time.

You may find different techniques for dual booting two operating systems but you cannot find one correct way to dual booting Linux and Windows. We tried to explain the easiest method to make things easier for those who want to do this for the first time while experiencing  the complete features of installing a Linux OS.

How to Dual Boot Linux Mint with Windows 8 installation

To start with, you need to boot up Windows 8 along with creating an empty partition for the Mint installation as you are dual-booting Linux Mint with already installed Windows 8 in this tutorial. To create an empty partition, press the Windows + R key combination, go to run box and type diskmgmt.msc and hit enter. You can also use Disk Management option in the Start menu to create a new partition on your hard disk.

While using Management MMC console, right click on your drive containing Windows 8 and you will see a list of options. Select Shrink Volume from the list of available options.

The pup-up box will ask you about the megabytes you want to shrink the partition by. For the purpose of dual booting, you must enter a minimum of 10GB. As 1 GB contains 1024MB, do your own calculations before allocating a figure in the text box.

After creating a partition, inser Linux Mint DVD into your PC. Now, boot your PC from the DVD drive that can be done by pushing of a key at the POST screen. Even though, motherboards are different from each other but F11 or F12 can work for most of the motherboards.

In most cases, the DVD will boot into its Live mode automatically but if not, you can press a key if prompted and can select “Start Linux Mint”.

After the DVD is booted,  double click on the Install Linux Mint shortcut on the desktop to start installation.

keep clicking continue until you reach the installation type section. Now, change the radio button with something else option as shown in the picture.

Now, click on the continue and a new page will appear with options to pick for Mint installation. Keep scrolling down until you reach a partition called “free space”.

Now, select the option by Double clicking and it will bring up the format menu. You can now accept all the defaults but not the mount point. For mount point,  enter a single forward slash and click OK.

Now, you will see a button “Install now”, click on it to start installations.

You can find installation process very handy as it will keep asking you about your prefered configuration settings while the OS is busy installing.

Once the installation is finished, you need to reboot your PC. You can now also select new OS from the startup menu.

This will change your default OS to Linux Mint now. There is no need to worry, you have an option to switch between the operating system of  your choice. You can use Windows 8 from the Grub boot menu or can stick with the default OS i.e. Linux Mint.

Let us know about your experience with dual-booting in the comments below!!

via How-To Geek