How to Install Ubuntu 20.04 Alongside With Windows

This tutorial describes the installation process of the latest release of Ubuntu Desktop 20.04, codename Focal Fossa, on a dedicated machine or a virtual machine alongside a pre-installed Windows 10 Operating System. The installation process can be done via the Ubuntu Desktop DVD ISO image or via a bootable Ubuntu USB drive.

The Ubuntu OS will be installed on a UEFI motherboard with Legacy Mode or CSM (Compatibility Support Module) option disabled.

Requirements

1. Download Ubuntu Desktop 20.04 ISO image for x86_64bit architecture.
2. A direct or a proxy internet connection.
3. Rufus utility in order to create an Ubuntu Desktop bootable USB drive compatible with UEFI motherboards.

Create Free Space on Windows for Ubuntu Install

On a pre-installed machine with a single Windows 10 partition, you need to create some free space in Windows partition in order to install Ubuntu 20.04.

First login to the system using an account with administrator privileges, open a Command Prompt window with admin rights and execute diskmgmt.msc command to open Disk Management utility.

Select the Windows partition, usually C: volume, right-click on this partition and select Shrink Volume option in order to reduce the partition size.

Windows Disk Management Utility

Wait for the system to collect partition size data, add the desired amount of space you want to shrink, and hit in the Shrink button.

Shrink Windows Partition

After the shrink process completes, a new unallocated space will be present in your drive. We’ll use this free space to install Ubuntu alongside Windows 10.

New Windows Partition for Ubuntu Install

Install Ubuntu 20.04 Alongside with Windows

On the next step, place Ubuntu Desktop DVD ISO image or the bootable USB stick into the appropriate motherboard drive and, reboot the machine and hit the appropriate bootable key ((usually F12 , F10 or F2 ) in order to boot the Ubuntu installer DVD or USB bootable image.

On the first installation, screen select Install Ubuntu and hit Enter key to start the installation process.

Install Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop

On the next screen, select the keyboard layout for your system and hit on the Continue button.

Choose Keyboard Layout

In the next installation screen, choose Normal installation and hit on the Continue button. In this screen, you also have the option to perform a Minimal installation of Ubuntu Desktop, which includes only some basic system utilities and a web browser.

You can also turn off Secure Boot option, if this option is enabled in motherboard UEFI settings in order to install third-party software for graphic card, Wi-Fi or additional media formats. Be aware that turning off Secure Boot option requires a password.

Select Ubuntu Installation Type

Next, In the Installation type menu, choose Something else option in order to manually partition the hard disk and hit on the Continue button.

Ubuntu Manual Partition

In the hard disk partition table menu, select the hard drive free space and hit on + button in order to create the Ubuntu partition.

Choose Free Space Partition

In the partition pop-up window, add the size of the partition in MB, choose the partition type as Primary, and the partition location at the beginning of this space.

Next, format this partition with ext4 filesystem and use / as a partition mount point. The /(root) partition summary is described below:

• Size = minimum 20000 MB recommended
• Type for the new partition = Primary
• Location for the new partition = Beginning of this space
• Use as = EXT4 journaling file system
• Mount point = /

Create Root Ubuntu Partition

After completing this step, hit on the OK button to return to disk utility. Other partitions, such as /home or Swap are optional in Ubuntu Desktop and should be created only for special purposes.

However, if you still want to add a home partition, select free space, hit on + button and use the below scheme to create the partition.

• Size = size allocated as per your requirements, depending on the size of remaining disk free space
• Type for the new partition = Primary
• Location for the new partition = Beginning
• Use as = EXT4 journaling file system
• Mount point = /home

In this guide, we’ll install Ubuntu alongside Windows 10 with only the /(root) partition set. After you’ve created the required root partition on the disk, select Windows boot Manager as a device for the boot loader installation and hit on Install Now button.

Partition Table Summary

In the pop-up window, hit on the Continue button in order to commit the changes that will be written to disk and start the installation.

Confirm Partition Changes

On the next screen, select your location from the provided map and hit on the Continue button.

Choose Your Country Location

Next, insert your name, the name of your desktop, a username with a strong password, and choose the option with ‘Require my password to log in’. When you finish, hit on the Continue button and wait for the installation process to complete.

Create Ubuntu User

During the installation process, a series of screens that describe Ubuntu Desktop and the installation progress bar will be displayed on your screen. You cannot interfere with the installation process in this final stage.

Ubuntu Installation Progress

After the installation completes, eject the installation medium and hit on Restart now button in order to reboot the machine.

Ubuntu Installation Finishes

After reboot, the system should boot into the GNU GRUB menu. In case the GRUB menu is not displayed, restart the machine, go to motherboard UEFI settings and change boot order or Boot Options -> BBS priority.

The settings to enable the GRUB menu highly depend on your machine motherboard UEFI settings. You should consult motherboard documentation in order to identify the settings that need to be changed in order to display the GRUB menu.

Ubuntu Boot Grub Menu

Finally, log in to Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop with the credentials configured while installing the system and follow the initial Ubuntu welcome screen in order to start using Ubuntu Desktop.

Ubuntu Login Screen Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa alongside Windows 10 on your machine.

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How To Install Ubuntu Along With Windows

Last updated November 12, 2020 By Abhishek Prakash 179 Comments

Brief: This detailed guide shows you how to dual boot Ubuntu with Windows legacy BIOS systems. If you are not sure, read this to know if you have BIOS or UEFI system.

Continuing my experimentation with different Linux distribution, I installed Xubuntu last week. Xubuntu is a variant of Ubuntu with Xfce desktop environment instead of the default Unity. Light on resources, Xubuntu can be a good Linux alternative of Windows XP.

I prefer to install Linux in dual boot with Windows. I hardly use Windows but it gives me sort of back up if I mess up with things. Dual booting Linux with Windows is always suggestible for the beginners. In this tutorial, we shall see how to install Ubuntu in dual boot mode with Windows.

This guide covers system with BIOS. You can read this article for dual booting Windows 10 and Ubuntu with UEFI.

Ubuntu, Xubuntu, which one is it? Don’t be confused. The steps given here are equally applicable to Ubuntu, Xubuntu or even Linux Mint.

Before we see how to dual boot Ubuntu with Windows, let me give you some important details.

First, I had Windows 7 installed with 3 partitions on it. Later I installed Linux on it in dual boot mode. I changed the partition and kept around 100 GB of total 320 GB for Linux installation. In the course of time, I upgraded to Windows 8 and subsequently to Windows 8.1. I never had to face the problem of Windows 8′s secure boot thingy. It is just to clarify that this process does not show you how to deal with UEFI .

Install Ubuntu in dual boot with Windows 10 & Windows 8

Follow the steps below to install Ubuntu in dual boot with Windows:

Step 1: Create a live USB or disk

Download and create a live USB or DVD. In Windows, my favorite tool to create a live USB is Universal USB Installer.

Step 2: Boot in to live USB

Plug the live USB or disk in to the computer and restart the computer. While booting the computer press F10 or F12 function key (defers from computer to computer) to go to the boot menu. Now, choose the option to boot from USB or Removable Media.

Step 3: Start the installation

It will take some time to boot in to the live USB or disk. Once booted, you will be immediately provided with option to either try Ubuntu or install Ubuntu. Even if you choose to try, you can find the option to install on the desktop:

First few screens are pretty straight forward. Just choose press continue:

Step 4: Prepare the partition

This is the most important part of the whole dual boot installation. Where to install Ubuntu? Windows is already installed here, so, we’ll prepare a new partition for Ubuntu. In the Installation Type window, choose Something Else:

As you can see, I have 3 NTFS and some ext4 partitions. If you don’t have ext4 partition, don’t worry, we don’t need that. As you can see in the picture below, one of the NTFS partition consists of Windows installation. This should be untouched if you want to keep your Windows installation safe.

I presume that you have more than one NTFS (or FAT 32) partitions (i.e. Drives in Windows term) on your hard disk, with one of them consisting of Windows installation (usually C drive). What you need to do here is to delete a NTFS or existing ext4 partition and create some free space. This will delete all the data in that partition and this is why I asked you to verify if you have Windows installed in a different partition.

Click on the desired partition and press the – to delete the partition.

Step 5: Create root, swap and home

Once you have some free space on your hard drive, its time to install Ubuntu on it. Now, there are several ways to do it. But I prefer to have a Root, a Swap and a Home.

The root should be at least 15 GB for a comfortable use. If you have more disk space, increase the root size. Suppose you have 100 GB of disk space. You can easily devote 30 GB of space to root.

Create a root partition first. Choose the free space available and click on +.

Here, choose the size of root directory (keep it 20 GB or more), choose ext4file system, and mount point as / (i.e. root):

Next step is to create swap partition. It is advised by many that Swap should be double of your system’s RAM size. You can choose the swap size accordingly.

The next step is to create Home. Try to allocate the maximum size to Home because this is where you’ll be downloading and keeping the files.

Once you have created Root, Swap and Home partitions, click on Install Now button.

Step 6: Follow the trivial instructions

If you successfully created the partitions as mentioned above, you have almost won the battle. Rest is just some trivial steps to follow. You will be taken through a number of screens to select options like keyboard layout, login credentials etc. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what to do here afterwards. I have attached screenshots for reference purpose here.

Once the installation is over, you will be presented with the option to keep trying live version or to restart the system.

And that’s it. On next boot, you will see the option of Ubuntu in the grub screen. And thus you can enjoy the beautiful, beginner friendly and world’s most popular Linux distribution. I hope you found this guide to dual boot Ubuntu with Windows helpful. If you need, you can change the boot order easily to make Windows your default OS. Since you have just installed Ubuntu 14.04, you can check out things to do after installing Ubuntu.

If you have questions, suggestions or a word of thanks, feel free to drop a comment.

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