Install to machine with UEFI -- dual boot Win7-- Do I dare?

[adomeij]

Hi,
I'm siitting in front of my new HP Tower PC.
It came with Win7 preinstallaed on a 1,5 Tb disk, 100Mb primary (System), 1.36 Tb primary (c and 1,5 GB primary (D: rcovery disk).
I could use the Win/ tools to skrink c: to appr 700 Gb and got roughly 600 GB of unallocated space on the disk.
So now I'd like to install my OS of choice (you guessed it -- OpenSuse) too.
I want to be able to dual-boot either to OpenSuse or Win7 once I'm done.
Reading the forums, it's not clear to me if I should even try, UEFI being the potential stumbling block.
I've tried running 12.1 from a 'live' USB and it not only seems to work, it looks great.
The threads I've found in the forum so far agree -- do not install from the live USB stick if you're on a UEFI computer, you must use the DVD install.
I have the DVD so that's not a problem, but trying to figure out from the threads if I can actually install from the DVD and have dual-boot functionality is not as easy to figure out :-)
GRUB seems to be out of the question, GRUB2 might work (but is not on the DVD), so the recommendation is elilo.

So my simple(?) question is will it work to install from the DVD with elilo as boot manager to be able to dual-boot between Win7 and OpenSuse 12.1?

Thanks in advance
/Anders

[please_try_again]

This article (part II) has been published 5 minutes ago.

• Booting openSUSE on UEFI BIOS with ELILO and Grub2 (part I - linux only multi-booting
• Booting openSUSE on UEFI BIOS with ELILO and Grub2 (part II - Windows dual-boot )

Please read both articles carefully. Whether you dare or not is up to you though. Good luck!

[please_try_again]

So my simple(?) question is will it work to install from the DVD with elilo as boot manager to be able to dual-boot between Win7 and OpenSuse 12.1?

The short answer is no. But the long answer is provided in the article and the final answer is yes. You'll have to install Grub2, which can be done automatically with updateGrub2 or manually - the method is detailed in these two articles.

[robin_listas]

On 2012-01-21 19:26, adomeij wrote:

> So my simple(?) question is will it work to install from the DVD with
> elilo as boot manager to be able to dual-boot between Win7 and OpenSuse
> 12.1?

But you have not proved that your current system is using UEFI. You need
the output of fdisk -l to be sure. If it is using classic partitions, then
grub legacy will be fine.

--
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 "Celadon" at Telcontar)

[DenverD]

On 01/21/2012 09:16 PM, please try again wrote:
> This article (part II) has been published 5 minutes ago.

ultraCool!

thanks for your many contributions!!!

--
DD

[adomeij]

Trying to go slow and easy this time around

so if diskpart in my Win7 Installation says:

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online         1397 GB   679 GB
  Disk 1    Online         1397 GB      0 B
  Disk 2    No Media           0 B      0 B
  Disk 3    No Media           0 B      0 B
  Disk 4    No Media           0 B      0 B
  Disk 5    No Media           0 B      0 B
  Disk 6    Online           14 GB      0 B

And after selecting disk 0

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

listing the partitions on it

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Primary            100 MB  1024 KB
  Partition 2    Primary            702 GB   101 MB
  Partition 3    Primary             14 GB  1382 GB

I would deduct (from previous comments) That I do not have a UEFI installed Win7 and That Grub would suffce?

Thanks in advance
/Anders

[oldcpu]

Just an obscure comment (on my part) but you are asking GNU/Linux users to interpret MS-Windows commands. I know I would not dream of attempting that myself (having left MS-Windows in 1998 and having things changed significantly in Windows since then, not to mention that my memory going back 14 years has long since forgotten the minimal that I knew).

Is it not possible for you to boot to a GNU/Linux liveCD and then provide diagnostic information using GNU/Linux tools while running from that liveCD ? That might mean a bit more to some on this thread ? ....

... anyway hopefully that is a MUTE point and others who know MS-Windows (in a GNU/Linux forum) will be able to help.

[DenverD]

On 01/23/2012 06:56 PM, oldcpu wrote:
> others who know
> MS-Windows (in a GNU/Linux forum) will be able to help.

ha! i tried to read it and had no idea what was being relayed...or
why..so, i stopped reading...had i recognized it as windows i might have
written what you wrote, except i left windows in '95...so, "diskpart" is
a windows command, interesting..

--
DD
openSUSE®, the "German Engineered Automobiles" of operating systems!

[robin_listas]

On 2012-01-23 17:06, adomeij wrote:
>
> Trying to go slow and easy this time around
....
> Code:
> --------------------
> DISKPART> list partition
>
> Partition ### Type Size Offset
> ------------- ---------------- ------- -------
> Partition 1 Primary 100 MB 1024 KB
> Partition 2 Primary 702 GB 101 MB
> Partition 3 Primary 14 GB 1382 GB
> --------------------
>
>
> I would deduct (from previous comments) That I do not have a UEFI
> installed Win7 and That Grub would suffce?

My guess is that you have partition (primary) number 4 free. I would prefer
to see the output from Linux "fdisk -l", though. I guess you have a similar
setup to my Compaq laptop. #1 would be the Windows Boot, #2 would be the
Windows system partition, and #3 the Rescue partition.

If my guesses are correct and you have free space as well (if not, you have
to reduce #2), then you can install creating first #4 as extended, using
all the remaining free space, and inside create at least three partitions
for Linux (using the install DVD): swap, root and home.

Then you have the choice of where to install grub: MBR or #4 with generic
boot code. I use the later.

--
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 "Celadon" at Telcontar)

[adomeij]

--Blush--
Sorry for the Win cmds & output, but the system is curently running Win7 so 'I took what I could get'.
Should I feel bad about reading the forum from a Win machine too?


I'll get the fdisk output soon...
/Anders