Prepare for installation
Back up your files, think about where Linux is going to go, and don’t be too quick to delete all trace of other OSes.
Since very early in the history of Linux, people who wanted access to both Linux and Windows had the option of installing both OSes on a single drive. This dual boot arrangement would start with a Windows install, resize the main Windows partition, install Linux, and then GRUB (Linux’s Grand Unified Bootloader) would give you a nice menu where you could choose Windows or Linux.
In theory this should still work well nowadays, but since Windows 8, Microsoft’s boot manager and recovery partition structure have become much more complicated. And sometimes it all goes wrong. This might be GRUB failing to install correctly (which could deny the user access to both Linux and Windows), or it could be GRUB failing to get the parameters correct for Windows, making it unbootable. Sadly it tends to be beginners that get bitten by these sort of catastrophic failures, and while bootloader issues don’t damage the rest of the data on the machine, panicked attempts to reinstall Windows, or to delete Linux, certainly do.
Even if the initial Linux install goes smoothly, we’ve heard anecdotal reports of things falling apart after a Windows update. This process is particularly opaque and has (reportedly) tried to put new recovery partitions where they don’t belong, overwrite GRUB, or otherwise make the system less useful than it used to be. We must stress that these are minority reports – people dual boot Windows and Linux all the time without issue – we just don’t want you blaming us if it breaks.
Also, it’s not strictly fair to blame Windows for breaking things – it’s not exactly designed to live alongside other OSes, and OEMs introduce their own recovery partitions, which may confuse Linux installers and Windows Update alike. Newer GPT formatted disks allow many more than the three primary partitions provided by the old, so-called MS-DOS partitioning (and it also saves you messing around with logical partitions inside those primary ones). But just because you can have more partitions doesn’t mean you should.
Our recommendation for users wanting to dual boot without hassle is simple – get another disk drive. SSDs are cheap, easy to install and much faster than hard drives. You’ll have more space and you won’t have to begin your Linux journey with a potentially risky and time-consuming partition shrink. We don’t guarantee your transition to Linux will be hassle-free. But at least this way
your chance of running into any unexpected blank screens or data loss will be diminished. Even if you’re migrating a laptop that only has room for one drive, take the old one out and keep it somewhere safe. Get an external drive caddy, so you can get the data off it via USB (or eSATA if you’re feeling wild and crazy).
Older BIOS-based systems can be told to boot from a particular device. Newer, UEFI-based machines have a similar option, but it’s actually more granular – it can boot a particular OS on a particular drive (see below). UEFI also provides a classic BIOS mode (sometimes called CSM), which you shouldn’t need to use, but if your previous install uses this then you should to keep it enabled. A machine can’t boot UEFI images in classic BIOS mode, and vice versa. So if you install Linux in a different mode than Windows was installed, you’ll need to revert to that mode in order to access Windows again.
It’s not recommended to mix and match these things, but sometimes needs must. If you are still nursing a Windows 7 install, it will almost certainly have been installed in classic BIOS mode. If you have a machine made after around 2012, it will almost certainly have UEFI firmware. Whichever you have, by giving your Linux install its own drive and keeping it separate from Windows, life should be easier. You should always be able to choose one or other OS from the BIOS/ UEFI no matter what peculiar behaviour either OS exhibits.
Once you’ve got Linux installed, found suitable alternatives for your Windows-only applications and migrated your data, you can remove the old drive, reuse it, destroy it or use it as a sentimental paperweight.
One thing that distinguishes Pop from other user-oriented distros is that it offers hassle-free full disk encryption. This can be done on other distros, but it may be fiendishly tricky. With Pop all you need to do is tick a box during installation. Encryption (with a strong passphrase) will protect your data in the event of your computer or disk drive being stolen (it does nothing for security once you’re logged in). There’s no discernible performance penalty, so we’d definitely recommend this option for laptop users. For
desktop use (unless you’re handling very sensitive data or are very worried about being burglarised) it’s a harder sell. A small downside is that if you encounter a disk error (unlikely because Linux filesystems are resilient and you bought a shiny new SSD just for this feature, right?) then there’s a risk your data could be corrupted. You should always back up your data so this may not be as disastrous as it sounds.
When you’re ready, follow our easy step-by-step guide to getting Pop installed. If you run into difficulties, take note of any errors, check the Pop!_OS community (https://system76. com/pop/community) and chat.