DUAL-BOOT ELEMENTARY & WINDOWS
Set up this slick Linux OS alongside Windows
Set up this slick Linux OS alongside Windows, and benefit from the best of both worlds
Ever wanted to dip your toe into Linux, but felt put off by the user experience? It’s time to confront your fear. Linux isn’t as impenetrable as it looks, with Ubuntu providing a very userfriendly approach to getting started.
Ubuntu is a great flavor of Linux, but one of its biggest achievements has been to pioneer a host of off-shoot distros that focus on providing a more welcoming environment for those wishing to switch from other OSes. One obvious example is Linux Mint, an Ubuntu-derivative that uses the Cinnamon desktop to provide a Windows 7-like experience for switchers. Another—as you’re about to discover—is Elementary OS.
Elementary is based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, and is perfect for those who like their OSes to look sleek and modern. It’s particularly attractive to Mac switchers, but while we’ll touch on how you can install Elementary alongside OS X, our primary focus is configuring it in a dualboot setup with Windows.
First, we’ll show you how to repartition your hard drive to split off your data from Windows itself—this means you can access your personal files easily from either OS via a shared partition. You’ll then build your Elementary install media, and we’ll then step you through the install process. It’s usually straightforward, but we’ve got your back covered in case it proves trickier than it should be.
We’re not going to just abandon you at the Elementary login screen either— there’s time for a quick tour of the Elementary desktop, plus we’ll reveal how to get started with the Terminal, and even replace the boring GRUB boot loader with something a little more visually appealing (not to mention more practical).
One final thing: Before diving in, give Elementary a test drive first in a safe environment. You can do this from the install media—choose “Try Elementary” at the main screen—or by installing Elementary in a virtual machine using the likes of VirtualBox (which you can download from www.virtualbox.org) for a more in-depth play. Once you’re hooked, turn the page to start installing and using Elementary as your brand new operating system.
Before you can dive in and install Elementary, there’s a bit of preparatory work to do. Take a drive image—so you can roll back if things go wrong—and then prepare to separate your data from your Windows drive. The simplest way to share data between Windows and Elementary is through a shared data drive, whether that’s a separate physical drive or a separate partition.
Once set up, you’ll move across your key user folders—”Documents,” “Pictures,” and so on—to this drive, and update the references, so Windows knows where to look for your data going forward.
PARTITION YOUR DRIVE
If you’re not using a separate physical drive to store your data, right-click the “Start” button, and choose “Disk Management.” Locate your Windows drive (this is typically drive C on Disk 0), then right-click that, and choose “Shrink Volume.”
Windows calculates how much free space it can give you—this may not tally with the total amount of free space on the drive, though, because of unmovable files. If you’re adamant that you should be able to free up more space, but can’t due to Disk Management’s limitations, you need to use a third-party partitioning tool, such as Minitool Partition Wizard Free ( www. partitionwizard.com).
If you’re lacking free space due to the presence of files already on the drive, consider moving the largest ones temporarily off the drive to your backup drive, in order to free up enough space for your new partition. Use a tool such as WizTree ( http://antibody-software.com) to help identify these, move them, and then restart the process.
Don’t forget to free up enough space to accommodate Elementary, as well as your data—if you’re installing everything on the same drive, Elementary always looks to place itself after your data partition. As a general rule of thumb, Windows needs a minimum of 32GB to run comfortably, but you’ll soon run out of space, so you should look to ensure your Windows partition is at least 50GB in size, and much larger if you play a lot of games. The rest is then allocated to your data partition and— eventually—Elementary.
Here’s an example. You have a 512GB hard drive. You could look to allocate around 150GB for Windows, leaving you 350GB for your data partition and Elementary. When you come to resize your partition, Windows asks you how much space you wish to shrink the partition by—in other words, how much space do you want to reserve for your other partitions? It’s a bit awkward, because it lists the figure in MB rather than GB, so to free up 350GB of space, you need to enter a figure like “350000” into the “Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB:” box.
Once done, click “Shrink,” and wait for Windows to complete the process. You then see “Unallocated” space appear in the “Disk Management” window—right-click it, and choose “New Simple Volume.” Follow the wizard, allocating all available space for now, assigning it a drive letter, and formatting using the NTFS filesystem. Give it a suitable label, such as “Data,” and your new partition is ready to go.
MOVE KEY FOLDERS
It’s time to move your key user folders to the new partition. Open File Explorer, browse to “This PC,” then right-click each of your user folders in turn, and choose “Properties > Location tab.” Click “Move,” then browse to your data drive (consider creating a user folder inside which you then create subfolders for “Documents” and your other folders), select the new target folder, and click “OK.” When prompted, click “Yes” to move your data across to the new partition. Once complete, you can then move any files you’d previously copied off the drive back on to it.
OBTAIN BOOT MEDIA
It’s time to build your bootable Elementary installation media. Download the ISO file from https:// elementary.io, where you can enter “0” in the “$ Custom” field to avoid paying for it, then click “Download elementary OS.” Save the ISO file to your hard drive—it’s 1.3GB.
While you can right-click this ISO and choose “Burn image” to create a bootable install DVD, the disc is incredibly slow—a better option is to dig out a 2GB flash drive, download Rufus from https://rufus.akeo. ie, and use that to convert your flash drive into bootable media. Select your USB drive from the “Device” drop-down menu, choose “ISO Image” next to “Create a bootable disk using,” and click the button next to it to select your Elementary ISO file.
Click “Start,” leave the recommended “ISO Image mode” option selected, then click “OK” twice, and wait for the bootable media to be created.
INSTALL ELEMENTARY
Beyond the basics
The moment of truth has arrived. It’s now time to install Elementary itself. The process will be familiar to anyone who’s dabbled with Ubuntu Linux—it’s practically identical. Start by booting with your bootable media inserted—if it’s not automatically detected, reboot, and look for an option to access your boot menu at the beginning of startup; typically it involves pressing a key such as F10 or F11.
When the boot menu appears, look for your USB device—you may see two entries, in which case, select the one marked “UEFI.” Once the install wizard appears, verify “English” is selected, and click “Install Elementary.” If necessary, connect to your Wi-Fi network when prompted, then check both the “Download updates” and “Install third-party software” boxes, before clicking “Continue.”
If all is well, your Windows installation should be detected—leave “Install Elementary alongside Windows 10” selected, and click “Continue.” First, verify that Elementary has selected the correct disk to install itself on to—if you have more than one internal hard drive, it may attempt to install itself on the second drive. (If this is the case, you have two choices: either click “Back,” and skip to the “Manual Partitioning” section below, or power off your PC, open it up, temporarily disconnect the second hard drive, and try the install process again. Once Elementary is installed, reconnect the drive.)
Assuming you’re happy with the choice of drive, Elementary attempts to allocate itself around half of all available space, but you can use the slider to alter this as you see fit. For a basic Elementary installation, 25GB should be ample, but if you plan to run games on it, you’ll want to give yourself plenty of extra breathing room—50GB or even more. Click “Install Now,” and jump to “Complete installation.”
MANUAL PARTITIONING
In some rare cases, Elementary won’t detect your Windows installation— the option for installing it alongside Windows won’t be visible. If this is the case—or you wish to manually partition the drive for any other reason— choose “Something else,” and click “Continue.” Identify your data partition by its size and position on the disk (it’ll be the second large partition), then select it, and click “Change.” Reduce its size by the
number of megabytes required to free up space for Elementary (25,000 for 25GB, for example), and leave “Do not use the partition” selected, before clicking “OK,” followed by “Continue.”
When the space has been freed up, select the “free space,” and click the “+” button. Set the size in “Create partition” to 4096MB, to create a 4GB swap file (ample for most setups), select “End of this space,” click the “Use as” drop-down, and set to “Swap area.” Click “OK.” Finally, select the remaining free space, and click “+” again. Leave all the settings as they are except for the “Mount point”—click this, and set it to “/”. Click “OK,” then “Install Now.” Review the proposed changes, and click “Continue.”
COMPLETE INSTALLATION
Once the drive is partitioned, verify the time zone is correct, and click “Continue.” Check the keyboard layout matches your language and your keyboard, and click “Continue” again.
Next, you’re prompted to enter your name, give your PC a name to identify it on your network, then adjust the username if required, before setting a password and choosing whether to log in automatically. Click “Continue,” and leave Elementary to install itself. When done, you’re prompted to disconnect your Elementary install drive or eject the disc, then press [Enter].
Your PC reboots, and you see the new GRUB loader for the first time, giving you a choice of Elementary or Windows 10. Select “Windows 10” to verify you can boot back into Windows, then reboot again. This time, leave “Elementary” selected, and hit Enter, or wait for it to start loading on its own.
Once you reach the login screen, things will start to feel familiar—Elementary may be based on Linux, but its point-and-click desktop is much closer to Windows (or macOS).
FIRST STEPS
The Elementary desktop consists of three primary areas: at the bottom is the Dock, with shortcuts to various apps, as well as the App Center (where you keep Elementary up to date), and any icons representing open programs.
You should see the App Center icon show a number, which indicates there are updates available. Click it to open the App Center, switch to the “Updates” tab, and you’ll find various updates—including crucial OS updates—are waiting for you. Click “Update All,” and enter your user password when prompted to provide elevated access. You’ll see progress bars appear as updates are downloaded and installed—as you’re installing OS updates, you may be prompted to reboot when the process is complete.
While you wait, familiarize yourself with the other key areas of the desktop. The “Applications” shortcut, top-left, reveals a pop-up menu giving you access to all your apps, which can be viewed alphabetically or by category, while a Search tool helps you target specific apps, settings, and even actions within apps (such as options for taking screenshots, for example). Open an app, and its icon appears in the Dock. To
make it a permanent fixture, right-click the Dock icon, and choose “Keep in Dock.”
If the Dock is your taskbar, and the Applications pop-up your “Start” menu, the icons at the top-right represent your taskbar notification area. Here you’ll find handy shortcuts to network settings, music and sound, language settings, and the power button (including user-switching settings, as with Windows). Other things to note: “System Settings” under “Applications” is your Control Panel, while the Files app enables you to browse your hard drives.
AUTOMATIC DATA PARTITION MOUNTING
By default, only your Elementary partition is mounted at startup—while you can manually mount your data partition each time you boot, it’s better to have it mount automatically.
Install the Disks utility from the App Center. Launch the app, select your drive in the left-hand pane, then highlight your data partition in the right, and click “Settings” beneath it. Choose “Edit mount options” from the pop-up menu, and slide the “Automatic Mount Options” switch to off. Leave “Mount at startup” and “Show in user interface” checked, then change the “Mount Point” to match the drive’s current mount point (listed under “Contents” in the main “Disks” window). Click “OK,” supply your password, and click “OK” again. When you next reboot into Elementary, you should find the data partition is already mounted.
FINAL DETAILS
You’re ready to be let loose with Elementary, but there are some things to note: If you don’t like the default Files manager (it’s a bit simple), try searching for “nautilus” to install Ubuntu’s more powerful substitute (confusingly also called Files). Another alternative to consider is Synaptic Package Manager in place of App Center for a wider range of apps (and easier management of repositories).
Finally, install Elementary Tweaks (you need to install software-commonproperties—see the “Terminal” box): $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:philip. scott/elementary-tweaks $ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install elementary-tweaks
Once installed, access it via “System Settings” under “Personal”—click “Tweaks” to uncover more tweakable settings.