How to Dual Boot Windows 10 and Linux Mint?

Last Updated : 07 Nov, 2022

Dual booting is the process of installing two operating systems on a single machine. In reality, such a system allows for the installation of various operating systems. However, how does the computer know which operating system to boot? The boot area can be occupied by a boot loader that comprehends various file systems and numerous operating systems. One of the operating systems on the disc can be booted once it has been loaded. The disc may be divided into several partitions, each of which houses a distinct operating system. A boot manager application presents a menu when a computer turns on, enabling the user to select the operating system to use.

Linux Mint is a community-driven Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. It has a lot of packages. It’s one of the most popular, safe, and reliable desktop Linux distributions. In this article, we’ll install it alongside windows aka dual boot Windows and Linux Mint.

Prerequisites:

A USB drive at least of 8GB.
HDD or SSD having at least 20 GB free space.

Procedure to Dual Boot

Follow the below steps to dual-boot Windows and Linux mint.

Step 1: Download your favorite Linux Mint flavor from https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Step 2: Create a bootable USB drive so that you can boot Linux Mint. You can do this by using the Rufus https://rufus.ie/en/ tool which is a very good tool for this purpose.

Note: If you’re using UEFI based system (most probably) then use the GPT partition scheme as shown in Step 2 below image, otherwise use MBR.

Step 3: Make a partition for Linux Mint to install.

a) Open your disk management application by Pressing Win key -> Search to create and format ->

b) Select the disk on which you’ve enough space in my case Disk 0 then right-click and select Shrink Volume and shrink as per your requirement. Since I have a lot of space so I shrunk 200 GB (1 GB = 1024MB)

Step 4: Boot the USB drive.

Plug in your USB drive and restart the computer, while booting depending on your system press F9 or F10, or F12. You can easily find your boot menu key using Google. Since the computer gets restarted so I can not take a screenshot of the restart so I didn’t add that in this step.

NOTE: Be careful while performing the below steps

Step 5: Start the installation by clicking on Install Linux Mint

b) Select the language which you are comfortable with.

Step 6: Installation type.

a) Automatic Partitioning – The installer will format the HDD or SSD drive (where your Windows is installed) and it will take care of creating the required partitions.

NOTE: Use this option only if you don’t mind the partition layout and size.

If you selected this option then confirm auto partitioning. Click on Continue

b) Manual Partitioning

Something else – Use this option in case you want to create partitions as per your need. Click on Continue

Step 7: Create partitions for Linux Mint installation. You can choose home and root partition sizes as per your need.

For UEFI-based systems:

EFI – 1 GB
swap – 2 GB
/home – 100 GB
/ (root) – Remaining (97 GB)

For Legacy BIOS systems:

/boot – 1 GB
swap – 2 GB
/home – 100 GB
/ (root) – Remaining (97 GB)

Select the free space and then click on ‘+’ at the bottom left to create a partition. Make sure you select the correct free space in my case I knew I’ve shrunk 200 GB of space so I got confirmed by seeing the size of the free space.