On Friday I get a shiny new PC (acer TC 1760 UA92) with win 11 preinstalled.
Will I be able to install Ubuntu Mate for dual boot without a stress attack? (the pc is modern with all the newfangled BIOS uefi and all) In the old days, I format disk, install win10, make a new partition, install Mate. Done.
Last time I tried I wasn't given the choice to install for dual boot, would not use empty parttion to install Mate(?) . I'm wondering if this will happen again this time? Thanks for your replies!
I purchased this machine earlier this year; it had windows 11 on it (using secure-uEFI). Alas it wasn't shiny new, but a refurbished box.
I used it as a QA-test with lunar (23.04) during the alpha stage of the cycle, and it worked perfectly for me. I then performed another install of jammy (22.04) as I like having dual-boot with the current development release, plus LTS release (I don't care about windows actually; it just reserves some space I'll partition when my partitions are full; but I didn't erase it so I could use box for QA install testing; ie. reboot & confirming it was not impacted outside of loosing allocated disk space)
I actually purchased five boxes of various types, four having windows 10 on them, with this box the only windows 11. I installed on all five (development + lts)
Of the five systems, four went perfectly; one didn't. The one box that was problematic was from a make/vendor that I got three of the machines from; thus I expected all would be problematic or perfect, alas nope (maybe model matters?). The problematic one was the last I installed, so maybe I felt sure of myself & missed something, or did something wrong; alas I don't know what was different.
Anyway, my suggestion would be; it will likely work perfectly, but no guarantees.
I had to ensure all machines had fastboot disabled, no encryption etc. Doing this given the machines/firmware settings were different was I found the largest hassle. Detecting this though was just done by booting the Ubuntu system, starting the installer & looking to see if all looked as I expected, if it didn't I didn't install & returned to windows/firmware settings & played with settings again.
FYI: I used both calamares & ubiquity installers, ubiquity being what Ubuntu-MATE uses; calamares being what Lubuntu used. To me the installer/flavor makes no difference; hey this windows 11 box has been re-installed since then too having been used with both; though the initial install is closest to what you're asking about (ie. when only windows existed on it) and that was months ago now. My 2c (having no knowledge about your specific box!).
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It will work, but just make sure to regulate the times that windows updates so that it doesn't wreck your linux one unfortunate day.
I reccomend doing it on seperate disks.
guiverc
I don't understand your reply. I wan to try again...please try to make your response as simple as possible, step by step would be ideal. Ok here it is again:
I've been struggling to make my new computer dual boot, win11 and Ubuntu Mate. I 've done this(win10 + Mate) at least 20 times in the past. But my method no longer works. The PC doesn't see the USB as a bootable device and just goes right to the hdd where it proceeds to load win11 (yes I changed boot order in BIOS).
I understand UEFI requires special treatment...so I even turned TPM off in Bios, no change. I am totally lost and have no idea what to do next. If I can't resolve this issue within a couple of weeks, I'll have to return the PC (which I 'd hate to do)
I used Rufus from Win11 and it did write the OS to the usb. but the system just won't boot from it.
If anyone can help mw make this computer into dual boot, please talk to me! Thank for any responses.
I'm not sure I can provide more.
I used the 5 machines I purchased, all of which included Windows (10 or 11) for QA testing. The windows 11 device is now my primary box (my old primary box had its PSU die last year, and it was months before I finally replaced it).
As the boxes were new, I added some music files, some jpgs to the windows systems, so I had something there to confirm nothing was damaged (as well as confirming windows actually worked pre-install testing), but other than those files the systems were in effect untouched.
As I used the boxes for Quality Assurance testing, I followed the normal install instructions found on the ISO QA web site. The installs were done with the current daily, but given this was back in February 2023, the latest system then was lunar (what is now 23.04). I also installed the LTS thus used the then daily was (be it 22.04.2 or 22.04.3 I no longer recall, as a quick scan and I see the release of 22.04.2 was Feb 2023 too)
As I have an affinity for the Ubuntu flavors, I used both ubiquity (used by Ubuntu MATE/Xubuntu and others) plus calamares (used by Lubuntu; I'm a team member, in fact on the Lubuntu Council) rather than the ubuntu-desktop-installer (default for Ubuntu Desktop 23.04 ; maybe a shame & I considered using one box for that installer, but I'm pretty sure I didn't).
The first install was what I think of an install alongside test, ie. add the new Ubuntu flavor to the existing disk (auto resize), though on this my primary box I probably was more particular and used it as a "Manual Partitioning" scheme so I can get a result closer to what I wanted. I do recall not using the existing ESP (uEFI System Partition) on this box (it was 100MB which is too small for 3 OSes) but I can't be precise on what I did back in February. What I did will be documented in a QA test report, but I have no plans of searching for those notes.
As stated, 4 of the initial installs were perfect, with the new Ubuntu system (I call all flavors Ubuntu) plus windows booting. On the fifth I refer to as a failure, no loss of data occurred, but windows failed to boot, and required manual fixing to get it functional. I'm not a windows user, so didn't care if windows was erased; it wasn't wiped being useful for the QA only. FYI: all five of the installs had Ubuntu installed; the failure only had issues with windows.
The second install was just another install alongside, with the LTS daily; this primary box didn't require an auto-resize or install alongside, as I recall just installing into a partition I'd setup from the first install (why I think it was a manual partitioning first install), but I don't recall.
I'd have liked having a separate /home partition on this my primary box (my prior box had it), but that made fitting what I wanted far more difficult in relation to matching the QA install testcases so I skipped that. We can non-destructively re-install our Ubuntu systems anyway even when using a single partition, so it doesn't matter. In fact this box has had its development system re-installed non-destructively, as I had minor issue this mantic cycle on the box.
As for uEFI & special treatment. My primary box that died late last year was a 2009 dell (ie. what most would consider ancient) thus I understand legacy better myself. I installed on this system in the same manner EXCEPT I knew it required an ESP, and I didn't want to use the 100MB ESP that came with windows, thus created my own a little larger & had the install use that. The old ESP still exists; a tiny amount of wasted ssd space.
I don't use rufus, but mkusb to write my ISOs to thumb-drive, in fact most of the time it's just
sudo mkusb-nox mantic-desktop-amd64.iso all
taken from my bash history, where it'll write the ISO found in the $PWD or current directory (ie. whatever flavor directory I'm in).
I did install using Secure-uEFI, and systems will boot if the system has Secure-Boot disabled or enabled. I don't recall touching TPM setting, and I did not explore the BIOS settings before I did my installs (outside of noting Secure-Boot) as I wanted the systems to be as original as possible for the tests (ie. as I purchased them, except I'd booted windows, added username or whatever windows required, added some music/graphic/text etc files so I had something to check post-install, the first I allowed windows to fully-upgraded, but as that too so damn long; I skipped that on later tests, or disconnected wifi/ethernet as I wasn't patient enough for them all to upgrade). I did enure fastboot etc. was disabled; on some boxes I didn't get this right first time, which I detected when the installer didn't allow me to use the install method(s) I wanted; in which case I just rebooted into windows & ensured it wasn't hibernated. fastboot disabled etc; then on next boot it was as expected in the Ubuntu installer(s).
Personally, I trust ubiquity or the installer used by Ubuntu-MATE. The only suggestion I'll make, is if you make a mistake & need to back out from some dialogs, it maybe better to start the install process again (ie. quit installer, wait a bit for system to clean up ram, then restart installer). There are some screens where hitting BACK can make the python3 heap a little messy (this isn't well worded & maybe entirely accurate sorry, but hopefully you'll know what I mean; there are reasons why Ubuntu want to deprecate the ubiquity codebase). Ubuntu-MATE uses ubiquity (and I've had more troubles with calamares as used by Lubuntu too!)
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Thank you for your reply. I'm not asking you to provide more...actually asking to provide LESS. Sorry, I'm just too stupid to understand that gigantic explanation. You ever hear of the KISS principle?
let me ask this way: I realize this is a windows question, but just in case someone knows...how do I make the USB stick bootable in win11 so I can install Ubuntu Mate from USB just like I have done with win10 countless times? Thanks again
Here is the answer from ACER: : I should have looked there first.
- In Bios disable secure boot
- save Bios settings and shutdown pc
- reboot pc....press F12 when prompted
- choose UEFI NOT windows manager
- you'll get the win11 or Linux menu choices. (looks like GRUB)
Simple and done!
For safety: next time you reboot set secure boot to enabled in Bios and save
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