This will be a sort of guide on the steps I had to take to install Ubuntu MATE 15.04 in UEFI dual boot with Windows 10. As I mentioned in my last post, I did not have an easy time of installing Ubuntu, due to issues with getting my computer to actually boot the live USB stick I made.
I know that I installed Windows 10 in UEFI mode, as I forced it to do so, but I never realised that to get an actual working dual boot I needed to install all my operating systems the same way. This explained to me why I had so much issues getting my old computer to boot into GRUB as I had Windows 8.1 installed in UEFI and then I installed Arch Linux in BIOS mode. I always thought it was somehow me who just couldn’t figure out Arch correctly (I guess in way that was the actual reason).
To start with I tried installing my Ubuntu MATE 15.04 ISO-file onto a 16GB Kingston Data Traveler 2.0 with LinuxLive USB Creator, but I couldn’t get my ASUS Z97-A/USB 3.1 motherboard to boot the USB. I then tried creating the USB again, this time with UNetbootin, but again I couldn’t boot the Ubuntu MATE 15.04 LiveCD. This made me think that something must be wrong with one of the UEFI settings in my BIOS and I proceeded to try all kinds of combinations of disabling ‘Secure Boot’, ‘Fast Boot’ and ‘CSM/Legacy Boot Mode’. Naturally none of this helped me either. I did however change the boot order to always boot from UEFI devices first in the following order: USB, SDD, Network, which is how I’d normally want it to be.
After looking around at Ask Ubuntu and Ubuntu Community Help I found out that I should try to make the USB in only UEFI mode and I was rather amazed at how easy it was:
- Insert USB
- Format USB to FAT32
- Mount Ubuntu MATE 15.04 LiveCD by double clicking the ISO
- Copy all files from LiveCD to USB
- Open ‘Disk Management’ and check if the partition on the USB is marked as active
That is it. No more making the drive bootable through external programs in Windows or from the terminal in Linux. Just copy and go! What a world we live in!
Now it was pretty simple to get Ubuntu installed. Simply reboot the computer and chose to boot from the USB, follow the prompts (remember to chose to either the ‘Install Next to Windows’ or the ‘Something Else’ option to not delete Windows), reboot after installation and be greeted by GRUB.
There you have it. A working Windows 10 and Ubuntu MATE 15.04 in dual boot, both on Secure Boot in UEFI mode.
Next up, customization of the MATE desktop environment and adding different PPA’s to get the applications I want.