Finally looking at getting a new replacement laptop for the family, probably a Thinkpad T470 or Thinkpad T470s.
Remembered last year, when I was doing an installation of openSUSE with a friend’s new Thinkpad, we got into a big mess (remembered something about MBR and GPT disk etc). Long story short, we eventually reinstalled the Windows with secure boot/EFI disabled and after that, installed openSUSE.
Hoping to skip this mess with the new laptop, appreciate if someone can share
the “Proper way” of installing openSUSE onto a new laptop
links to articles for new laptop dual boot openSUSE installation
Do you want to install it instead of the Windows that might be on it, or do you want to install beside the Windows that is on it in a **dual boot **configuration.?
Download and prepare a Gparted Live on whatever media your machine supports (USB, CDROM, etc) http://gparted.org/download.php
Boot to Gparted Live to shrink your existing Windows Partition(s) enough for your openSUSE install. When completed, your existing Windows partition should be at the beginning(or end) of your disk and maybe half(?) the size of your disk, leaving the rest free, <unformatted> and <unpartitioned> disk space.
You may want to boot to your Windows next to verify it’s still working. When your Windows boots, your disk changes will be discovered and Windows will want to repair the partition(s). Let Windows do that, and then continue to boot into Windows. Then shutdown.
Insert your openSUSE install media and boot to that. The openSUSE install should discover and identify the Windows partition and system, and the free space… And then offer to install openSUSE into that free space. Accept and install.
And then, if all goes well it’s that simple.
(Well, I’ve skipped over a lot of detail which might be useful if you do run into problems… For instance I personally recommend considering disabling UEFI returning to an MBR boot to simplify things(Others may disagree) but is a slight security issue. But this is also why you should never embark on anything that will make substantial changes to your disk without first making a fully and verified working backup that can be restored).
Remember that virtualization is an excellent alternative to multi-booting for close to 100% everybody and unlike installing a multi-boot involves next to zero risk and may even provide you with more versatility and options for whatever you might want to do. If you don’t know or haven’t used virtualization before, I <highly> recommend you investigate this option first since many virtualization technologies like Virtualbox and VMware Player are free and involve no commitments that eliminate choices.
Remember that virtualization is an excellent alternative to multi-booting for close to 100% everybody and unlike installing a multi-boot involves next to zero risk and may even provide you with more versatility and options for whatever you might want to do. If you don’t know or haven’t used virtualization before, I <highly> recommend you investigate this option first since many virtualization technologies like Virtualbox and VMware Player are free and involve no commitments that eliminate choices
…& also reassure you, i left Windows for Linux in 2013/14, but do have a Win10 VirtualBox VM on my Lappy & Tower [both of which run Tumbleweed now]. Though i really dislike Win10, & only very very rarely choose to launch this VM, whenever i do so it all works just fine. One of the “more versatility and options” benefits alluded to by tsu2 from this arrangement as opposed to dual-booting, is that you maintain full normal access to all your openSUSE data & pgms even whilst you are also accessing your Win10. During my transition phase from Windows to Linux i did dual-boot, but once i knew that for me Linux was far superior to & more desirable than Windows, i reformatted into single-boot Linux [not openSUSE back then, but you get the picture] with a VM for Win. I found dual-booting utterly tiresome, having to keep booting back & forth - very inefficient compared to staying permanently in Linux & only using the Win VM if absolutely necessary [which as time went by, became less & less].