hey guys,
I just bought a new laptop with pre-installed windows 8, now I am looking forward to dual opensuse alongside windows 8. Can you guys help me show the ways of how to install opensuse alongside windows 8.
Your help is highly appreciated.
There are three very important question?
Does your PC support a UEFI setup? Is you hard drive formatted as a GPT Disk: Creating Partitions During Install for MBR and GPT Hard Disks - Blogs - openSUSE Forums , and is Windows 8 configured for secure boot: Making UEFI Secure Boot Work With Open Platforms | The Linux Foundation.
If you can answer all three questions as a YES, I suggest you hold off on any solution that loads openSUSE on the same internal hard disk. I do have a PC setup at home as dual boot with Windows 8 and it works great on a UEFI enabled PC, but I am using a conventional MRB disk and not GPT and not in secure boot mode. Switching to a MBR disk setup would likely require you reload Windows 8 from scratch. It appears you can get openSUSE to install onto a UEFI disk, and you can use your UEFI PC to select which OS to boot, but secure boot is another issue to fight. Make no rash installation decisions until you understand the whole story.
Thank You,
You should be able to turn secure boot off and not effect Windows.
You should be able to do it, but what is that exact procedure that you yourself has followed? I have not done it myself even though I could give it a try and so its hard without the exact details to suggest the same procedure to others. It is just my two cents worth on the idea of dual booting in secure boot mode with Windows 8 on a UEFI enabled PC using a GPT formatted hard disk. It is the details that kills ya.
Thank You for using openSUSE,
Nope have not done it but there "should be an option in the UEFI BIOS to turn it off and the reports are that this does not bother Windows. Your mileage may very
May I recommend Dual boot opensuse 12.3 and Windows 8 on a UEFI box which is based on my experience with this problem.
This is a relevant and interesting topic for me, as earlier today I purchased an Ultrabook computer with Windows8 on it and I hope to install openSUSE GNU/Linux on same Ultrabook in a dual boot. I do note thou - that the computer will be shipped to my sister’s place in Canada, and it will be a couple of months before I visit Canada to pick it up (of course I will be paying VAT on the computer when I bring it back to Europe).
I started a thread here where I have started exploring the issue: https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/install-boot-login/485517-opensuse-windows8-dual-boot-installation-questions-secure-boot-uefi-gpt.html
My current view is I will disable secure boot, but keep EFI enabled in the UEFI firmware. I will also keep the GPT drive formatting. I plan to defrag the windows8 (and remove the lock the page file, etc … in Windows8 has on chunks of data, so that the defrag works best).
Likely I will also use the MS-Windows8 tool to reduce the partition size that windows8 has allocated, to about 50% of its allocated size, such that 50% of the drive will be unallocated and such that I will be able to install openSUSE-12.3 in the unallocated space.
I still have not worked through all the details, but by reading that thread (and the other excellent links on this thread that have been offered up) I think it will start to give an indication as to the various considerations. In this case it is VERY IMPORTANT to read the openSUSE-12.3 release notes, as those release notes have a number of relevant sections, which I quote:
3.2. UEFI—Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
Prior to installing openSUSE on a system that boots using UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) you are urgently advised to check for any firmware updates the hardware vendor recommends and, if available, to install such an update. A pre-installed Windows 8 is a strong indication that your system boots using UEFI.
Background: Some UEFI firmware has bugs that cause it to break if too much data gets written to the UEFI storage area. Nobody really knows how much “too much” is, though. openSUSE minimizes the risk by not writing more than the bare minimum required to boot the OS. The minimum means telling the UEFI firmware about the location of the openSUSE boot loader. Upstream Linux Kernel features that use the UEFI storage area for storing boot and crash information (pstore) have been disabled by default. Nevertheless it is recommended to install any firmware updates the hardware vendor recommends.
3.3. Enable Secure Boot in YaST Not Enabled by Default When in Secure Boot Mode
This only affects machines in UEFI mode with secure boot enabled.
YaST does not automatically detect if the machine has secure boot enabled and will therefore install an unsigned bootloader by default. But the unsigned bootloader will not be accepted by the firmware. To have a signed bootloader installed the option “Enable Secure Boot” has to be manually enabled.
3.4. Wrong Bootloader When Installing from a Live Medium in a UEFI Environment
This only affects machines in UEFI mode.
When using the installer on the live medium, YaST does not detect UEFI mode and therefore installs the legacy bootloader. This results in a not bootable system. The bootloader has to be switched from grub2 to grub2-efi manually.
3.5. openSUSE 12.3 Medium May Not Boot on Future Secure Boot Enabled Hardware
This only affects machines in UEFI mode.
Our double signed shim on openSUSE 12.3 medium may be rejected by future firmwares.
If the openSUSE 12.3 medium does not boot on future secure boot enabled hardware, temporarily disable secure boot, install openSUSE and apply all online updates to get an updated shim.
After installing all updates secure boot can be turned on again.
3.6. Crypted LVM in UEFI Mode Needs /boot Partition
This only affects installations in UEFI mode.
In the partitioning proposal when checking the option to use LVM (which is required for full disk encryption) YaST does not create a separate /boot partition. That means kernel and initrd end up in the (potentially encrypted) LVM container, inaccessible to the boot loader. To get full disk encryption when using UEFI, partitioning has to be done manually.
I can confirm it.
I did it on a Lenovo Thinkpad running Windows 8.
Turned off secure boot 
(there’s an option in the UEFI firmware) and installed Linux in UEFI mode on a GPT hard disk.
Now I’ve got a dual boot system with Windows 8 working perfectly with secure boot disabled …
Yes, I have a UEFI supported system with GPT format. So, in that case Do I have to install in UEFI mode by just installing in an free space I want. Is there Any other step Do I have to include while installing in UEFI mode after installation or during installation.
If you are not using secure boot (its disabled) then you would need to use your PC UEFI setup to select the grub-efi install from the DVD hybrid disk (Being both MBR and EFI capable) and install an grub2-efi setup onto your GPT disk and then as I understand it, you would use your PC UEFI setup to select between booting from Windows 8 or booting into openSUSE. You can select either to be the default in your PC UEFI setup and many have a Function (F12?) key you can press at boot time to select between the two OS’. I have posted a couple of links and you are going to want to read up on it before you take any action.
Thank You,
Thanks a lot brother I will surely look at that.
By default, my system boots Linux.
I can select Windows 8, hitting the f12 key during start up.
The boot order can be changed either via the UEFI firmware or the efibootmgr program within Linux.