How To Dual Boot Linux Mint And Windows 10 [Beginner’s Guide]

Last updated November 12, 2020 By Abhishek Prakash 526 Comments

Brief: This guide shows you how to dual boot Linux Mint with Windows 10 and enjoy both Linux and Windows together in one system.

So you have decided to switch to Linux. Good decision! And if you chose to use Linux Mint, that’s even a better decision.

Linux Mint is one of the best Linux distributions for beginners. Using Linux Mint is fairly easy and installing Linux Mint is no rocket science either. In this tutorial, we’ll see how to install Linux Mint along side Windows 10.

Before that let me recap you a few things about installing Linux Mint. There are a few ways you can start using any Linux based operating system.

• Use Linux inside Windows in a virtual machine: This runs a Linux OS like any other application within Windows. This is also one of the safest ways to get a feel of Linux. However, this will utilize your system resources and if you have less than 4Gb of RAM, I won’t advise using it extensively.
• Use a live version of Linux: In this method, you put Linux on a USB or DVD and you boot from it. This is usually slow and your changes done to the Linux system are (normally) not saved. This is particularly useful if you just want to see what Linux feels like.
• Remove Windows and Linux: If you have backed up your data and have a recovery or installation disk of Windows ready with you or if you are determined that you are not going back to Windows, you can remove Windows completely and use only Linux.
• Install Linux alongside Windows: This method is called dual booting Linux with Windows. Here, you install Linux on a system that already has Windows. And when your system powers up, you can choose if you want to use Windows or Linux. This involves touching the disk partition and sometimes boot order. Absolute beginners often find it complicated but this is the best way to use Linux and Windows together in one system. And in this article, we’ll see how to dual boot Linux Mint with Windows 10.

Will dual booting Linux with Windows slow down your system?

I was asked this question several times in the Linux Users Group. So, the short answer is no. Dual booting Linux and Windows won’t slow your system in any way.

The only delay is in boot time that too because you get 10 seconds of buffer time to select between Linux and Windows. Once you have booted into either of Linux or Windows, it will work the same as if it is the only OS in the system. No impact on the usability of your system. Dual boot won’t slow down your system.

Install Linux Mint in dual boot with Windows:

Before we proceed to see the procedure to dual boot Linux Mint with Windows, let me give you some optional yet recommended safety instructions:

• Back up your data: You are going to touch disk partitions. Normally, it’s not a big issue but just in case if you touched wrong partition etc, you may lose data. So my advice is to back up your important files, documents, music, movies etc to an external disk or cloud, whichever suits you.
• Have a boot repair disk: If your boot gets messed up, you can try to repair it with boot repair disk. If you have an extra USB or CD, you can use that to create boot repair disk.
• Have a live or recovery disk of Windows ready: If your boot gets messed up and despite all efforts, you ended with an unbootable system, you can use the Windows disk to reinstall Windows.

I am not discouraging you. I am asking you to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

Remember that this article applies to computers that have Windows 10 already installed on the system. You are installing Linux Mint on an already installed Windows system, not the other way round.

I have created a detailed video tutorial on installing Linux Mint alongside Windows 10. You can refer to it if you want to see all the steps in even more details. I also advise you to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Linux tutorials.

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

Step 1: Create a live USB or disk

Go to Linux Mint website and download ISO file. This ISO file is the disk image that you can burn to a USB or DVD.

There are several versions of Linux Mint available. The default is Cinnamon. If your computer supports 64 bit, go with 64 bit Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon. If you know about other desktop environments, you can make your mind and choose whichever Mint version you want.

Once you have downloaded the Linux Mint ISO, you need a tool to write the image to a disk. I recommend using a free tool called Universal USB Installer in Windows:

It’s an executable exe file. Just double click on it to run the software and browse it to the ISO. Make sure that you have your USB key plugged in:

If you need more hints, here is a screenshot tutorial on how to create a live USB for Linux.

Step 2: Make a new partition for Linux Mint

This is where you have to be cautious. If you have multiple partitions (not the recovery ones), you can either use one of them or create a new partition from an existing partition. Your existing data will be safe if you have enough free space. Typically, you install Linux in under 10 Gb, however, if disk space if not a concern, I advise using 30-40Gb at least. This way you can have more space at your disposal for downloading and keeping various files.

In Windows 10, go to start menu and type ‘partition’. This will bring up Disk Management utility. Now carefully select the disk in which you’ll make some free space by shrinking the volume:

In my case, I only had the C Drive with 223Gb of space on it. So I shrunk it to make 110Gb of free partition on it. I recommend watch the video to see the exact steps you need more hint.

Step 3: Boot in to live USB

Plug the live USB or disk into 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.

Important Note: If your computer came with Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 and you upgraded your system to Windows 10, you may have to disable secure boot. Most modern system with Windows 10 should not need this step, especially with Linux Mint or Ubuntu.

Step 4: Start the installation

It takes some time to boot from the live USB or disk. Have some patience. Once it boots in to live disk, you’ll be provided to Try Linux Mint or Install Linux Mint. Even if you choose to try it, you can find the install option on the desktop:

In next few screens, you’ll be asked to choose the language of the operating system. It will then do some checks on available space, battery and Internet connection.

Step 5: Prepare the partition

This is the most important part of the whole installation. Where to install Linux Mint?

If you see the option to Install Linux Mint alongside Windows, you can select that. Linux Mint will handle things on its own. If you do that, skip step 5 and step 6.

But as mentioned before, I prefer separate partitions for Windows and Linux. Windows is already installed here, we’ll prepare a new partition for Linux Mint. In the Installation Type window, choose Something Else:

Step 6: Create root, swap and home

Since you already created a new partition in Windows, it’s time to install Linux Mint on it. Now, there are several ways to do it. But here, I’ll show you my favorite way and that is to have a Root, a Swap and a Home.

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

Here, choose the size of the root. Root is like your C drive in Windows. Installed software, updates and other system files are under this root partition. Home partition is for your personal documents, music, downloads etc.

If you have total 100 GB at disposal, give 30 GB to root. In any case, don’t give it less than 15 GB because if root runs out of space, your system will slow down and you’ll run into issues.

I opted to have 20 GB, choose ext4 file system, and mount point as / (i.e. root):

Now, next is to create the swap partition. Now the question is what should be the swap size for Linux Mint installation?

The answer depends upon your RAM size, your needs, available disk space and whether you would use hibernation or not. You can use the below suggestion:

• RAM less than 2 GB: Swap should be double the size of RAM
• RAM between 2 to 4 GB: Swap should be RAM size + 2 GB
• RAM between 6 GB to 8 GB: Swap should be size of RAM
• RAM more than 8 GB: Swap should be half the size of RAM or less

Don’t spend too much time thinking about swap. It is helpful for systems with less memory. For system with more than 8 GB of RAM and SSD, the less the swap, the better it is.

Newer version of Linux Mint utilize Swap file. It creates a special file under root and utilizes it as swap area. You can have both swap partition and swap file in a system.

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 7: Follow the trivial instructions

Technically, you have crossed the main hurdle if you reached this point successfully. Now you will be taken through a number of screens to select options like keyboard layout, login credentials etc. You don’t need to be a genius to figure out what to do here afterward. 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 would be it. On next boot, you will see the option of Linux Mint on the grub screen. And thus you can enjoy the beautiful and beginner-friendly Linux distribution. I hope you found this guide to Linux Mint dual boot with Windows helpful.

Here are a few common troubleshoot you might have to do after dual booting Linux Mint:

I strongly advise you to read things to do after installing Linux Mint so that you can have a good start.

If you want to remove, you can follow this guide to uninstall Linux Mint from Windows 8 dual boot.

If you have questions, suggestions or a word of thanks, feel free to drop a comment. Stay tuned for more Linux Mint tutorials. Ciao 🙂

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Windows Subsystem for Linux Installation Guide for Windows 10

There are two options available for installing Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL):

Simplified install (preview release): wsl —install

The wsl —install simplified install command requires that you join the Windows Insiders Program and install a preview build of Windows 10 (OS build 20262 or higher), but eliminates the need to follow the manual install steps. All you need to do is open a command window with administrator privileges and run wsl —install , after a restart you will be ready to use WSL.

Manual install: Follow the six steps listed below.

The manual install steps for WSL are listed below and can be used to install Linux on any version of Windows 10.

If you run into an issue during the install process, check the Troubleshooting installation section at the bottom of this page.

Simplified Installation for Windows Insiders

The installation process for Windows Subsystem for Linux has been significantly improved in the latest Windows Insiders preview builds of Windows 10, replacing the manual steps below with a single command.

In order to use the wsl —install simplified install command, you must:

• Join the Windows Insiders Program
• Install a preview build of Windows 10 (OS build 20262 or higher).
• Open a command line windows with Administrator privileges

Once those requirements are met, to install WSL:

• Enter this command in the command line you’ve opened in Admin mode: wsl.exe —install
• Restart your machine

The first time you launch a newly installed Linux distribution, a console window will open and you’ll be asked to wait for files to de-compress and be stored on your PC. All future launches should take less than a second.

CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve successfully installed and set up a Linux distribution that is completely integrated with your Windows operating system!

The —install command performs the following actions:

• Enables the optional WSL and Virtual Machine Platform components
• Downloads and installs the latest Linux kernel
• Sets WSL 2 as the default
• Downloads and installs a Linux distribution (reboot may be required)

By default, the installed Linux distribution will be Ubuntu. This can be changed using wsl —install -d . (Replacing with the name of your desired distribution.) Additional Linux distributions may be added to your machine after the initial install using the wsl —install -d command.

To see a list of available Linux distributions, enter wsl —list —online .

Manual Installation Steps

If you are not on a Windows Insiders build, the features required for WSL will need to be enabled manually following the steps below.

Step 1 — Enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux

You must first enable the «Windows Subsystem for Linux» optional feature before installing any Linux distributions on Windows.

Open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

We recommend now moving on to step #2, updating to WSL 2, but if you wish to only install WSL 1, you can now restart your machine and move on to Step 6 — Install your Linux distribution of choice. To update to WSL 2, wait to restart your machine and move on to the next step.

Step 2 — Check requirements for running WSL 2

To update to WSL 2, you must be running Windows 10.

• For x64 systems: Version 1903 or higher, with Build 18362 or higher.
• For ARM64 systems: Version 2004 or higher, with Build 19041 or higher.
• Builds lower than 18362 do not support WSL 2. Use the Windows Update Assistant to update your version of Windows.

To check your version and build number, select Windows logo key + R, type winver, select OK. Update to the latest Windows version in the Settings menu.

If you are running Windows 10 version 1903 or 1909, open «Settings» from your Windows menu, navigate to «Update & Security» and select «Check for Updates». Your Build number must be 18362.1049+ or 18363.1049+, with the minor build # over .1049. Read more: WSL 2 Support is coming to Windows 10 Versions 1903 and 1909. See the troubleshooting instructions.

Step 3 — Enable Virtual Machine feature

Before installing WSL 2, you must enable the Virtual Machine Platform optional feature. Your machine will require virtualization capabilities to use this feature.

Open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

Restart your machine to complete the WSL install and update to WSL 2.

Step 4 — Download the Linux kernel update package

Download the latest package:

If you’re using an ARM64 machine, please download the ARM64 package instead. If you’re not sure what kind of machine you have, open Command Prompt or PowerShell and enter: systeminfo | find «System Type» . Caveat: On non-English Windows versions, you might have to modify the search text, for example, in German it would be systeminfo | find «Systemtyp» .

Run the update package downloaded in the previous step. (Double-click to run — you will be prompted for elevated permissions, select ‘yes’ to approve this installation.)

Once the installation is complete, move on to the next step — setting WSL 2 as your default version when installing new Linux distributions. (Skip this step if you want your new Linux installs to be set to WSL 1).

Step 5 — Set WSL 2 as your default version

Open PowerShell and run this command to set WSL 2 as the default version when installing a new Linux distribution:

Step 6 — Install your Linux distribution of choice

Open the Microsoft Store and select your favorite Linux distribution.

The following links will open the Microsoft store page for each distribution:

From the distribution’s page, select «Get».

The first time you launch a newly installed Linux distribution, a console window will open and you’ll be asked to wait for a minute or two for files to de-compress and be stored on your PC. All future launches should take less than a second.

CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve successfully installed and set up a Linux distribution that is completely integrated with your Windows operating system!

Install Windows Terminal (optional)

Windows Terminal enables multiple tabs (quickly switch between multiple Linux command lines, Windows Command Prompt, PowerShell, Azure CLI, etc), create custom key bindings (shortcut keys for opening or closing tabs, copy+paste, etc.), use the search feature, and custom themes (color schemes, font styles and sizes, background image/blur/transparency). Learn more.

Set your distribution version to WSL 1 or WSL 2

You can check the WSL version assigned to each of the Linux distributions you have installed by opening the PowerShell command line and entering the command (only available in Windows Build 18362 or higher): wsl -l -v

To set a distribution to be backed by either version of WSL please run:

Make sure to replace with the actual name of your distribution and with the number ‘1’ or ‘2’. You can change back to WSL 1 at anytime by running the same command as above but replacing the ‘2’ with a ‘1’.

The update from WSL 1 to WSL 2 may take several minutes to complete depending on the size of your targeted distribution. If you are running an older (legacy) installation of WSL 1 from Windows 10 Anniversary Update or Creators Update, you may encounter an update error. Follow these instructions to uninstall and remove any legacy distributions.

If wsl —set-default-version results as an invalid command, enter wsl —help . If the —set-default-version is not listed, it means that your OS doesn’t support it and you need to update to version 1903, Build 18362 or higher. If you are on Build 19041 for ARM64, this command may fail when using PowerShell in which case you can use a Command Prompt instead to issue the wsl.exe command.

If you see this message after running the command: WSL 2 requires an update to its kernel component. For information please visit https://aka.ms/wsl2kernel . You still need to install the MSI Linux kernel update package.

Additionally, if you want to make WSL 2 your default architecture you can do so with this command:

This will set the version of any new distribution installed to WSL 2.

Troubleshooting installation

Below are related errors and suggested fixes. Refer to the WSL troubleshooting page for other common errors and their solutions.

Installation failed with error 0x80070003

• The Windows Subsystem for Linux only runs on your system drive (usually this is your C: drive). Make sure that distributions are stored on your system drive:
• Open Settings -> **System —>Storage ->More Storage Settings: Change where new content is saved

WslRegisterDistribution failed with error 0x8007019e

• The Windows Subsystem for Linux optional component is not enabled:
• Open Control Panel ->Programs and Features ->Turn Windows Feature on or off -> Check Windows Subsystem for Linux or using the PowerShell cmdlet mentioned at the beginning of this article.

Installation failed with error 0x80070003 or error 0x80370102

• Please make sure that virtualization is enabled inside of your computer’s BIOS. The instructions on how to do this will vary from computer to computer, and will most likely be under CPU related options.
• WSL2 requires that your CPU supports the Second Level Address Translation (SLAT) feature, which was introduced in Intel Nehalem processors (Intel Core 1st Generation) and AMD Opteron. Older CPUs (such as the Intel Core 2 Duo) will not be able to run WSL2, even if the Virtual Machine Platform is successfully installed.

Error when trying to upgrade: Invalid command line option: wsl —set-version Ubuntu 2

• Enure that you have the Windows Subsystem for Linux enabled, and that you’re using Windows Build version 18362 or higher. To enable WSL run this command in a PowerShell prompt with admin privileges: Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux .

The requested operation could not be completed due to a virtual disk system limitation. Virtual hard disk files must be uncompressed and unencrypted and must not be sparse.

• Deselect “Compress contents” (as well as “Encrypt contents” if that’s checked) by opening the profile folder for your Linux distribution. It should be located in a folder on your Windows file system, something like: USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.
• In this Linux distro profile, there should be a LocalState folder. Right-click this folder to display a menu of options. Select Properties > Advanced and then ensure that the “Compress contents to save disk space” and “Encrypt contents to secure data” checkboxes are unselected (not checked). If you are asked whether to apply this to just to the current folder or to all subfolders and files, select “just this folder” because you are only clearing the compress flag. After this, the wsl —set-version command should work.

In my case, the LocalState folder for my Ubuntu 18.04 distribution was located at C:\Users \AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu18.04onWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc

Check WSL Docs GitHub thread #4103 where this issue is being tracked for updated information.

The term ‘wsl’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program.

• Ensure that the Windows Subsystem for Linux Optional Component is installed. Additionally, if you are using an ARM64 device and running this command from PowerShell, you will receive this error. Instead run wsl.exe from PowerShell Core, or Command Prompt.

Error: This update only applies to machines with the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

• To install the Linux kernel update MSI package, WSL is required and should be enabled first. If it fails, it you will see the message: This update only applies to machines with the Windows Subsystem for Linux .
• There are three possible reason you see this message:

You are still in old version of Windows which doesn’t support WSL 2. See step #2 for version requirements and links to update.

WSL is not enabled. You will need to return to step #1 and ensure that the optional WSL feature is enabled on your machine.

After you enabled WSL, a reboot is required for it to take effect, reboot your machine and try again.

Error: WSL 2 requires an update to its kernel component. For information please visit https://aka.ms/wsl2kernel .

• If the Linux kernel package is missing in the %SystemRoot%\system32\lxss\tools folder, you will encounter this error. Resolve it by installing the Linux kernel update MSI package in step #4 of these installation instructions. You may need to uninstall the MSI from ‘Add or Remove Programs’, and install it again.

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