Installing Windows 8 along side Arch Linux on fresh hardware.

Pat · 2015-05-13 07:04:05

I am in the midst of building myself a new workstation / gaming machine; I need to be able to dual boot.

I have all brand new hardware; and a completely blank 2TB hard disk.

I know a lot of people that had a lot of trouble getting Windows 8 to play nice with Linux, so much so that they gave up.

My question(s):

1) Is there an order I need to install the operating systems in? ( Is it easier to install Windows, then resize it's partitions from Arch or vice versa? )

2) I've read about but am a little confused on: if I can boot Windows 8 from GRUB. I keep seeing UEFI stuff pop up; and there is a UEFI-specific arch / grub image? I've also read that Windows will create a UEFI partition?

3) Would it be hard to also setup disk encryption with this configuration? (my Arch Linux partition will have a lot of sensitive work-related items)

Thanks!

jasonwryan · 2015-05-13 07:15:16

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dual_boot

Pat · 2015-05-16 00:46:36

So I tried reading as much as I can about this; but I'm still confused and unable to boot into Windows.

What I have:
* I first installed Windows 8 (as suggested by the wiki) then resized it's partitions to open space for Arch
* Created an EFI partition of 512M and formatted with FAT32 with the bootable flag
* Created a partition for Linux formatted with EXT4

* Installed Arch using pacstrap
* Installed grub with pacman then issued this command:

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=boot --bootloader-id=arch_grub

* Created a grub config with:

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

So the windows partition is not recognized by grub automatically, so I know i need to add it; however all the information I could find says its wants this file:

/boot/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi

The only file I have in the EFI directory is the one created when I installed grub (arch_grub)

I don't what I am missing, any help would be great.
Thanks!

cris9288 · 2015-05-16 02:34:05

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q … 4037,d.b2w

In the case of a Windows installation, you may also need to install ntfs-3g/dosfstools.

dcdriving · 2015-05-16 07:17:29

Didn't windows create the EFI partition if you installed it on an unformatted disk first? Did you then create another one after resizing the partitions (plural) and mount that one instead? Not sure the effect that would have but they should really co-exist on the same EFI partition I think.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-05-16 10:49:57

dcdriving wrote:

they should really co-exist on the same EFI partition

^ This.

You should share the Windows-generated ESP.

You can copy over /boot to the Windows ESP and modify /etc/fstab to reflect this change then re-mount /boot & re-run `grub-mkconfig`

Soukyuu · 2015-05-16 11:36:42

IF windows generated an EFI partition, that is. On my older UEFI PC, I had to explicitly boot the installation medium as UEFI from the boot menu, else it booted in BIOS-legacy mode and installed itself without UEFI compatibility (slower boot etc).

Pat · 2015-05-16 19:06:44

Soukyuu wrote:

IF windows generated an EFI partition, that is. On my older UEFI PC, I had to explicitly boot the installation medium as UEFI from the boot menu, else it booted in BIOS-legacy mode and installed itself without UEFI compatibility (slower boot etc).

Ah I didn't know that. Windows did create 2 partitions but the bootable one is not an EFI partition as far as I can tell.

So when I go to install Arch, I should see a EFI partition already there?

Soukyuu · 2015-05-16 19:49:26

I never had that system as dualboot, but you should see a fat32 partition created by windows if it installed in UEFI mode.

Pat · 2015-05-16 20:03:58

I just reinstalled Windows, and it has a 300MB recovery partition, 100MB EFI partition and a 999GB NTFS partition.

I take it I can then mount the EFI partition like I did with Arch eariler?

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-05-16 22:21:03

Pat wrote:

I take it I can then mount the EFI partition like I did with Arch eariler?

Yes.

Arch Linux

#1 2015-05-13 07:04:05

Installing Windows 8 along side Arch Linux on fresh hardware.

#2 2015-05-13 07:15:16

Re: Installing Windows 8 along side Arch Linux on fresh hardware.

#3 2015-05-16 00:46:36

Re: Installing Windows 8 along side Arch Linux on fresh hardware.

#4 2015-05-16 02:34:05

Re: Installing Windows 8 along side Arch Linux on fresh hardware.

#5 2015-05-16 07:17:29

Re: Installing Windows 8 along side Arch Linux on fresh hardware.

#6 2015-05-16 10:49:57

Re: Installing Windows 8 along side Arch Linux on fresh hardware.

#7 2015-05-16 11:36:42

Re: Installing Windows 8 along side Arch Linux on fresh hardware.

#8 2015-05-16 19:06:44

Re: Installing Windows 8 along side Arch Linux on fresh hardware.

#9 2015-05-16 19:49:26

Re: Installing Windows 8 along side Arch Linux on fresh hardware.

#10 2015-05-16 20:03:58

Re: Installing Windows 8 along side Arch Linux on fresh hardware.

#11 2015-05-16 22:21:03

Re: Installing Windows 8 along side Arch Linux on fresh hardware.

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