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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How to Install Ubuntu Linux in the Simplest Possible Way

Last updated April 16, 2021 By Abhishek Prakash 42 Comments

When it comes to the choosing a Linux for beginners, Ubuntu always comes on the top. I am not going to tell you why you should use Ubuntu. I am going to show you how to install Ubuntu.

There are various ways to install Ubuntu (or other Linux):

1. You can install Ubuntu inside a virtualbox in Windows
2. You can use Bash on Windows feature to install it inside Windows
3. You can dual boot Ubuntu with Windows (so that you can choose which OS to use at the time your system boots)
4. You can replace Windows with Ubuntu by wiping it altogether from your system

The method I am going to show in this tutorial is the fourth one. You wipe out the entire system and let Ubuntu be your only operating system. In my experience, this is the easiest way to install Ubuntu.

How is this the simplest way of installing Ubuntu?

You don’t have to worry about creating partitions on your own. It automatically creates an ESP partition for UEFI.

It uses the rest of the disk space in creating a single root partition. The root partition (normally) has a 2 GB of swapfile. You don’t need to create a separate swap partition and if the need be, you can increase the size of the swapfile.

The root partition also has the boot directory for grub related files. It also contains the home directory that is used for storing user related files like documents, pictures, music, videos, downloads etc.

It’s a no-brainer. You let Ubuntu do the work for you instead of wondering about creating ESP, root, Swap and Home partitions.

Best suited for you if you just want to use a single Linux distribution and no other operating system. You don’t want to switch distributions very often or if you do, you don’t have a lot of important data on it.

The procedure shown here works for Ubuntu and all other distributions based on it such as Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Linux Mint, Linux Lite etc. The screenshot might look a little bit different but the steps are basically the same.

Install Ubuntu by replacing Windows and other operating systems

What do you need in order to install Ubuntu:

• A USB of at least 4 GB in size. You can also use a DVD.
• Internet connection (for downloading Ubuntu and live-USB making tool, not required for installing Ubuntu)
• Optionally, you may need an external USB disk for making a backup of your important data (if any) present on the current system

If you are going to install the default Ubuntu GNOME, the system requirements are:

• A system with 2 GHz dual core processor or better
• 4 GB of RAM or more
• At least 25 GB of hard disk space

This method removes all the other operating systems along with the data present on the disk.

You may save your personal files, documents, pictures etc on an external USB disk or cloud storage if you want to use it later.

Step 1: Download Ubuntu

Before you do anything, you have to download Ubuntu. It is available as a single ISO file of around 2 GB in size. An ISO file is basically an image of disc and you need to extract this ISO on a USB disk or DVD.

You can download Ubuntu ISO from its website.

If you have slow or inconsistent internet, you can use torrent to download Ubuntu. The torrent files are located at the alternate download page (scroll down a bit).

Step 2: Create a live USB

Once you have downloaded Ubuntu’s ISO file, the next step is to create a live USB of Ubuntu.

A live USB basically allows you to boot into Ubuntu from a USB drive. You can test Ubuntu without even installing it on your system. The same live USB also allows you to install Ubuntu.

There are various free tools available for making a live USB of Ubuntu such as Etcher, Rufus, Unetbootin, Universal USB installer.

You may also watch this video to learn how to make a bootable USB of Ubuntu on Windows.

If you are already using some Linux distribution, you can use Etcher.

Step 3: Boot from the live USB

Plug in your live Ubuntu USB disk to the system.

Now, you need to make sure that your system boots from the USB disk instead of the hard disk. You can do that by moving the USB up in the boot order.

Restart your system. When you see a logo of your computer manufacturer (Dell, Acer, Lenovo etc), press F2 or F10 or F12 to access the BIOS settings.

Now, the BIOS screen could look different for your computer.

The entire idea is that you put USB (or removable media) on the top of the boot order. Save the changes and exit.

Step 4: Install Ubuntu

Now you should boot into the live Ubuntu environment. You’ll the grub screen that gives you the option to either try Ubuntu without installing or install it right away.

You may choose the first option i.e. ‘Try Ubuntu without installing’:

In around 10-20 seconds, you should be able to log in to the live Ubuntu environment. It may take some more time if you are using the slower USB 2.

Click on the Install Ubuntu icon on the desktop.

It will ask you to choose some basic configurations like language and keyboard layout. Choose the most appropriate ones for your system.

• Choose your language
• Choose keyboard layout

You should go for the normal installation here because it will install some software like music player, video players and a few games.

If you are connected to internet, you’ll get the option to download updates while installing Ubuntu. You may uncheck it because it may increase the installation time if you have a slow internet. You can update Ubuntu later as well without any issues.

Install Ubuntu 4

The most important screen comes at this time. If there are other operating systems installed, you may get the option to install Ubuntu along with them in dual boot.

But since your goal is to only have Ubuntu Linux on your entire system, you should go for Erase disk and install Ubuntu option.

Erase disk and install Ubuntu

When you hit the “Install Now” button, you’ll see a warning that you are about to delete the data. You already know it, don’t you?

Things are straightforward from here. You’ll be asked to choose a timezone

And then you’ll be asked to create a username, computer’s name (also known as hostname) and set a password.

Once you do that, you just have to wait and watch for like 5-10 minutes. You’ll see a slideshow of Ubuntu features in this time.

• 
• 

Slideshow provides basic information about using Ubuntu during installation

Once the process finishes, you’ll be asked to restart the system.

When you restart the system, you might encounter a shutdown screen that asks you to remove the installation media and press enter.

Remove the USB disk and press enter. Your system will reboot and this time, you’ll boot into Ubuntu.

That’s it. See, how easy it is to install Ubuntu. You can use this method to replace Windows with Ubuntu.

What next?

Now that you have successfully installed it, I strongly suggest reading this guide on things to do after installing Ubuntu to make your Ubuntu experience smoother.

I also recommend going through this list of Ubuntu tutorials and learn to do various common things with Ubuntu.

I hope you find this tutorial helpful in installing Ubuntu. If you have questions or suggestions, please feel free to ask it in the comment section.

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