Dual Boot MX Linux with Linux Mint

[JayTee]

I'm trying to dual boot MX Linux with an already installed Linux Mint 19.1 Mate. MX 18.2 64Bit boots and runs fine. I don't completely 'get' the installer, as it is different from Mint, which gives me the option to install on the entire HDD or alongside another OS. Searching the forums and YouTube, there are many 'Dual Boot MX LInux with Windows 10' dealing with EUFI, which does not really head me in the right direction. Am I missing some phrasing that would allow me to install 'alongside' or is that getting into partitioning and some extra steps I have to take there?

Dell Optiplex 780
Intel Core Duo CPU 3.00 GHz
6 GB RAM
Mesa DRI Intel Q45/Q43 Graphics
500GB HDD



If it's partitioning that is required I might need a little 'handholding' to step through that.

Thanks!

John

[manyroads]

I assume you read these and found no help there...
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/dual-boot/

https://mxlinux.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41303

[KBD]

You can use gparted to shrink that partition and allow room for MX. It's slightly more involved than the Ubuntu/Mint installer, requiring just a bit more effort on your part.
I'd boot into MX live, use gparted to shrink your Mint partition, then when you begin installing MX manually point the installer to the free area you created with gparted.

[sg-1]

Hi, from MX, I use this method to create dual boot. With gparted I resize the partition, from right to left in order to obtain an unallocated space.

Once this is done reboot the computer. I select the pendrive or dvd with Mint live and install the operating system in the unallocated partition created with MX, taking care to install the Mint GRUB in the root partition /

Upon restarting, MX will start, then from the terminal type: sudo update-grub and restart.
MX will allow you to select the operating systems installed.

Before creating the snapshot, prevention is better than cure.

Google translate!

[Head_on_a_Stick]

install the Mint GRUB in the root partition /

Installing GRUB to partitions is not recommend, it may cause problems:

installing to a filesystem means that GRUB is vulnerable to its blocks being moved around by filesystem features such as tail packing, or even by aggressive fsck implementations, so this approach is quite fragile

https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manua ... stallation

For non-UEFI systems it should be possible to not install GRUB at all.

Alternatively, select /dev/sdX in the MInt installer (ie, just the device with no partition number) then use the same location in the MX installer to overwrite it.

[sg-1]

installing to a filesystem means that GRUB is vulnerable to its blocks being moved around by filesystem features such as tail packing, or even by aggressive fsck implementations, so this approach is quite fragile.

and this approach can only be used if the /boot filesystem is on the same disk that the BIOS boots from, so that GRUB does not have to rely on guessing BIOS drive numbers.

The partition where Mint resides is on the MX disk. I do not insist further.

[rsotol028]

Hello, i have mint 19 32-bit installed and i want to install alongise the MX Linux

how to make space for:
no usb, no cd/dvd maybe ISO install partition maybe and the partition for the installation of the OS.

This is the partitions. i need the steps to do it.

Code: Select all

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 111.8G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0     1K  0 part 
├─sda2   8:2    0  59.6G  0 part /
├─sda3   8:3    0  48.4G  0 part /home
└─sda5   8:5    0   3.8G  0 part [SWAP]
sdb      8:16   1  28.9G  0 disk 
├─sdb1   8:17   1  26.9G  0 part /media/raul/USB MASS
├─sdb2   8:18   1     1K  0 part 
└─sdb5   8:21   1     2G  0 part 
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  

is one (1) disk only, partitioned
gparted
/dev/sda1 extended
/dev/sda5 linux-swap
/dev/sda ext4 / (boot)
/dev/sda3 ext4 /home