Linux Mint + MX Linux + Windoze....is that possible on 1 PC?

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Wimsomnia
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2018 7:21 am

Linux Mint + MX Linux + Windoze....is that possible on 1 PC?

#1 Post by Wimsomnia »

Hi,

Since about 2 years I use Linux Mint and Windows on 1 PC(dual boot). Always worked well.

Linux Mint is on a separate HDD in the PC and Windows on an SSD and my data are again on another SSD.

Now someone convinced me to try MX Linux too.

I tried to put MX on the same HDD as Mint. When installing from the live flashdrive I could make a separate partition with GParted to put MX on. When installing no error codes or something popped up.

After that I made a "triple boot"(is that even a right word?) with EasyBCD on Windows.
When I booted the PC, I got 3 choices but when I tried the MX option as well as
the Linux Mint option, all I got was this :

***************************************************************************************************
GRUB4DOS 0.4.5C 2014-01-17 mem 634K/3023M/4096M END 356539

[Minimal bash-like line editing is supported. For the first word,
Tab lists the possible completions of a device/filename]

Grub>
***************************************************************************************************

When I hit Tab, I get a list of possible commands. It's like one Grub replaced
another and doesn't work. Or isn't that possible?

Windows still starts like it should.

Did I make a wrong choice of root and grub possibilities when installing from the flashdrive?

About the UEFI: when I enter the BIOS,
all I can find is the brand and type: Asrock UEFI FM2A78M-HD+

Where did it go wrong?

As you can read I am rather new to all of this (especially the installing part :-) )
but I liked Linux Mint so I wanted to try MX Linux too...

Thanks in advance for any reaction and greetings from Belgium!!

*****************************************************************************************
Operating System : Windows 10 Pro and Linux Mint in dual boot.
CPU: AMD A10-7860K
RAM: 8 GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (10-10-10-30)

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fehlix
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Re: Linux Mint + MX Linux + Windoze....is that possible on 1 PC?

#2 Post by fehlix »

Welcome to the Forum,
please read above "New users: Please read this first"
and do post "Quick System Info" ( find in the menu "Quick System Info")
Copy/paste contend within [code][/code] tags.
Thanks,
fehlix
Gigabyte Z77M-D3H, Intel Xeon E3-1240 V2 (Quad core), 32GB RAM,
GeForce GTX 770, Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB, Seagate Barracuda 4TB

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rokytnji.1
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Joined: Sun Apr 13, 2014 9:06 pm

Re: Linux Mint + MX Linux + Windoze....is that possible on 1 PC?

#3 Post by rokytnji.1 »

I read your thread over here

https://www.linuxquestions.org/question ... 175631373/

I chose to stay out of it because yaneck is a smart cookie and I am clueless when it comes to EasyBCD on Windows. :tumbleweed:

I am just putting this link here because I figure members here need the whole story. The more details. The better they can help you. :happy:

Howdy and Welcome.

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fehlix
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Re: Linux Mint + MX Linux + Windoze....is that possible on 1 PC?

#4 Post by fehlix »

rokytnji.1 wrote: Fri Jun 08, 2018 7:53 am ..I am clueless when it comes to EasyBCD on Windows. :tumbleweed:
Well, EasyBCD is a smart gui-wrapper around grub4dos for that other os. It works well for creating BCD menu-entries.
The auto-creation of boot menu-entries for linux is effectively chainloading the PMBR (partition mbr),
and by this far not robust enough and often not working.
In advanced mode it provides to edit grub4dos menu.lst.
So yes, for BIOS-MBR system it might work well, but for MX Linux you would need to manually
enter the linux/intird line into menu.lst convert to the GRUB1-syntax.
For booting UEFI-system it is not very helpfull as grub4dos will have trouble here.
I do rather recommend to not use “bcd”-bootmanager or efi-botmanger of that os
but use instead GRUB bootloader to boot all avail OS, for both variant BIOS and UEFI!
I never run into issues having grub bootloader, even after those monster updates of that OS...
In same cases I provide simply one BCD entries in the bootmenu of that OS to chainload just GRUB,
from which I can boot into any other OS.
:puppy:
ttfn
--fehlix
Gigabyte Z77M-D3H, Intel Xeon E3-1240 V2 (Quad core), 32GB RAM,
GeForce GTX 770, Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB, Seagate Barracuda 4TB

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sunrat
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Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2016 9:54 pm

Re: Linux Mint + MX Linux + Windoze....is that possible on 1 PC?

#5 Post by sunrat »

I prefer to let GRUB manage all booting. One of my systems has Win10, siduction, MX-17.1, AVLinux and KXStudio all booting from siduction GRUB. They were all installed with UEFI/GPT.
My other system has Win7, siduction, Debian Stretch and KXStudio all booting from siduction GRUB with BIOS/MBR boot.
So yes it's possible, and you can put as many OS on one PC as you like. ;)

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fehlix
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Re: Linux Mint + MX Linux + Windoze....is that possible on 1 PC?

#6 Post by fehlix »

On bios-systems where I have more than one internal drive I do leave sometimes
the win-bootloader un-touched and do boot just from the other drive
as default boot device using GRUB2. With only one drive I do always use GRUB2 only.
On UEFI I do often just set rEFInd as the fault boot loader, which gives
my a easy way of selection chainloading different GRUB's of all the OS's
and chainload into win-boot loader too.
Gigabyte Z77M-D3H, Intel Xeon E3-1240 V2 (Quad core), 32GB RAM,
GeForce GTX 770, Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB, Seagate Barracuda 4TB

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Wimsomnia
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Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2018 7:21 am

Re: Linux Mint + MX Linux + Windoze....is that possible on 1 PC?

#7 Post by Wimsomnia »

Thanks all for your quick reactions!

Fehlix, I would use inxi -F in a terminal but that's part of the problem.
The "error" message I wrote in my original post, I get it trying to start MX but
also when I try to start Mint. The only thing that works for now is Window$.

So the only specs about my system that I can give are the ones I posted above, being:

Operating System : Windows 10 Pro and Linux Mint in dual boot.(but Mint doesn't work anymore for the moment)
CPU: AMD A10-7860K
RAM: 8 GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (10-10-10-30)

And about the UEFI/BIOS: Asrock UEFI FM2A78M-HD+

There is also this prog Speccy which can provide every little detail about
my system by making a link which I could post here. But I don't think that's
very useful, is it?

I also posted this problem on LinuxQuestions.org(maybe not so smart because it
could be confusing things but I wanted as much information or help I could get.)
There I also suggested this:

What I can do is "repair" the HDD with a complete image(made with Macrium Reflect within Windows)
from about a week ago and start from scratch. (I've already done this for complete other reasons and it worked perfectly)
At least Mint will work again.

But when I do that, I don't want to make the same mistakes when I want to install MX again.... Maybe you find this better
or easier to give me advice.

My apologies for possibly not being clear on some things but English is not my native language.

Thanks in advance for the time you put in helping me out.

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fehlix
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Re: Linux Mint + MX Linux + Windoze....is that possible on 1 PC?

#8 Post by fehlix »

Well, I would not give up so fast.
First question
1. Can you still bood from LiveUSB?
2. Is this a BIOS-Mode Windows or a UEFI?
If you do not know how to answer this :
An alternative question:
3. When you boot MX Linx from USB, do you have the classical
MX-Boot menu (in BIOS mode), where you see at the bottom of
the screen "F1 Help F2 Language F3 Timezone ...." ?
Or do you have the GRUB- MX-Boot menu,
where you have a line "Press 'e' to edit the selected entry"?
Gigabyte Z77M-D3H, Intel Xeon E3-1240 V2 (Quad core), 32GB RAM,
GeForce GTX 770, Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB, Seagate Barracuda 4TB

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penguin
Posts: 260
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 3:15 pm

Re: Linux Mint + MX Linux + Windoze....is that possible on 1 PC?

#9 Post by penguin »

On a HP 8580W laptop with 256 GB SSD and 240 GB HDD. Arch,MX Linux,Sparky, Windows 10 (all 64 bit).
On a Lenovo X201i laptop with 64 gb SSD and 32 SD Card. MX Linux 32,Sparky32,Sparky64 and Manjaro64.

Hope it helps.

P.S.
My advice.When install a new Linux on your PC, do not write on boot on the end of the installing procedure.Finnish process,restart computer and enter on system(Linux) that is own your boot.Update grub that is installed by this Linux. Automatically grub will add new incomer on list. Restart computer and start the new incomer.

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Wimsomnia
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2018 7:21 am

Re: Linux Mint + MX Linux + Windoze....is that possible on 1 PC?

#10 Post by Wimsomnia »

Fehlix, Penguin, Rokytnji and Sunrat,

I'm very sorry to say that due to a tragic accident
in my family, I won't be able to visit this forum(or any
other for that matter) for at least a few weeks.


Thanks for all the help and I hope I can come back here when
all is settled down.

Greetings

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