Linux For Dummies. Richard Blum

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СКАЧАТЬ Windows before you install Linux. Otherwise, during installation, Windows overwrites the part of your hard drive that Linux uses to store its boot menu. (This factor can create a mess later when you want to boot back into Linux!) Then after you have Windows installed, return here.

      The majority of you, however, want to dual boot because you’ve got one machine and it’s already running a Windows installation that you really don't want to redo. The following sections walk through the processes required to get your computer ready for a dual boot environment.

      Installing a second hard drive

      Next to replacing the existing operating system, the second easiest way to get Linux onto a PC is to install a second hard drive. Many desktop PCs support multiple hard drives by either chaining two hard drives together on the same disk cable, or providing multiple cables to handle hard drives.

You have to crack open the PC case and take a look inside to see what you're up against. The standard disk controller cards in most PCs allow up to two devices per controller, and often PCs will have more than one controller installed on the motherboard. If you see two cables with the long multi-pin connectors in them, you're in luck. If you see only one cable with an empty connector on it, you should be okay also.

      Usually you can determine your disk controller configuration by looking at the BIOS setup screen for your PC. To get to your BIOS setup screen you usually need to press a Function key (often F2 or F12) as your PC first starts up. Consult with your specific PC manufacturer to find out which key to use. Besides the hard drive, controllers also support connecting CD/DVD drives, so you'll need to be careful when evaluating your disk controller situation.

      

If your motherboard contains only one disk controller, and uses it for the hard drive and a DVD device, you won't be able to add a second hard drive on that controller. Usually you can find plugin disk controller cards to add a second controller to the PC. You'll need to do just that if you want to add another hard drive.

      After you get the second hard drive installed, you're ready to get going with Linux. As mentioned earlier, it'll help to know which hard drive is the Windows one and which one will be used for Linux. If you don't know, you can use one of the disk management tools discussed in the following section. Once you know which hard drive is which, you can skip to the “Double-Checking Hardware Compatibility” section to check on the rest of your computer hardware.

      Partitioning an existing drive

      If you only have a single hard drive available in your PC, you need to create separate areas (called partitions) on the hard drive for Windows and Linux. This section walks through the process of how to do that, but first, you need to understand how partitions work.

      Three types of partitions are available: primary, extended, and logical. A hard drive can have three primary partitions and one extended partition. Each primary partition acts as a separate hard drive as far as the operating system is concerned. Inside the extended partition you can have up to 12 logical partitions — think of an extended partition as just a cardboard box that contains the logical partitions. Logical partitions behave similar to primary partitions and hold data; extended partitions just hold logical partitions. Because I can't predict what software you want to install, I recommend having at least 10GB of space available in a partition for your Linux installation. More is always better because it gives you more room for downloads and even more programs.

      

Make a note of the partition you dedicate to Windows and the one you dedicate to Linux. You need this information when installing Linux.

      Those who aren't starting from scratch for a dual boot likely need to make changes to their current installation. Proceed to the next section to find out how.

      Partitioning using Windows tools

      If you already have Windows installed on the entire hard drive, you'll need to shrink that partition down so there's room for Linux. The first step is to check your existing hard drive for how much free space is available to dedicate for Linux. You can do that using the File Explorer tool in Windows by following these steps:

      1 Open File Explorer by clicking the folder icon in the taskbar, or typing file explorer in the search area in the taskbar and selecting File Explorer from the search results.

      2 When File Explorer opens, click This PC on the left-hand side of the window.This displays the status of the various storage devices you have connected to your PC. Figure 2-1 shows an example of what you might see in File Explorer.

      The example shown in Figure 2-1 shows a single hard drive connected to the PC (assigned as drive letter C). File Explorer shows the drive is 899GB in size, and has 483GB available for use as a second partition.

      FIGURE 2-1: The Windows 10 File Explorer window.

      

It's usually not a good idea to allocate all the free space on your hard drive to Linux; you'll want to leave some extra room in the Windows partition so you can continue doing things while you're running Windows, such as downloading and installing patches or saving new files.

After you determine how much space you want to dedicate to Linux, you're ready to partition the hard drive.

      The Windows utility you want to use is the Disk Manager program. Follow these steps to use it:

      1 Right-click the Start icon in the taskbar.

      2 From the menu that appears, choose Disk Management.The Disk Management dialog box appears as shown in Figure 2-2. The dialog box shows all the hard drives installed on the PC, along with the partitions for each one.FIGURE 2-2: The Windows 10 Disk Management tool.

      3 Right-click the partition that indicates it is assigned as a Windows partition and assigned a drive letter (usually the C drive).You can click either the partition entry in the text list, or the graphical picture of the partition. As shown in Figure 2-2, many modern PCs create one or more hidden partitions that aren't assigned drive letters in Windows. These partitions don't appear in File Explorer, but are used by the PC to contain recovery data to reinstall Windows in an emergency. Don't mess with those partitions!

      4 Select Shrink Volume from the pop-up menu.The Shrink Volume dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 2-3.FIGURE 2-3: The Shrink Volume dialog box.

      5 Enter the amount of space you want to assign to the Linux partition in the text box.Note that the entry is in MB (megabytes) instead of GB (gigabytes). One gigabyte is equal to 1024 megabytes, so just multiply the available GB space value by 1024 to get the MB value to enter here.

      6 Click Shrink.

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