Hi Solus team! I'm about to install Solus to try it out.

I need to install it in a brand new laptop with Windows 10. I'd really appreciate some insights on:

  1. What's the preferred installation option? I see 2 possible options:

    --> the "automatic install alongside Windows" one.
    --> the custom one "assigning mount points". I started with this one since this is the way I've used in the past. But I don't really need to have a custom /home dir in these days (I have GH haha).

  2. In any case I need the UEFI mode. I would like to understand what's the correct disks partition shape. Should I keep my current Windows EFI partition AND create a new one for Solus? or I should have a single one?

For reference, this how my partition schema looks now:

  • Windows EFI 260Mb (primary)
  • Windows SSD 255Gb (primary)
  • Not assigned 200Gb (I'm planning to create an extended one here, with the logicals /, /home, swap).
  • Windows recovery 1Gb.

3. doesn't the Windows recovery partition at the tail of the disc represent a problem?


Thanks in advance! I'm willing to try Solus out.
Cheers from Argentina!

    There were some older threads I was part of that I have not... followed up on, but I think it may be a matter of the computer manufacturer and their BIOS - don't quote me on that, mind you.

    In my case, I used a new HP laptop for Solus. I in fact completely removed Windows 10 in the process! Installing the OS on the HP involved setting the BIOS to classic or EFI mode, or whatever it is. I believe I've read a few comments of some installing under UEFI, but I cannot comment on their details.

    • [deleted]

    • Post #4
    • Edited

    You need a separate EFI partition (FAT32) for the boot loader. Then create separate partitions for windows and Solus.
    Make sure UEFI is activated in your BIOS. When you install an OS it will ask you what partition to use.
    But be careful having windows and linux on the same SSD / HDD. In my case, some time ago windows installed an update an generated some new partitons without asking and killed my linux partiton. This does not happen when you have linux and windows on separate hard drives or SSDs.

      [deleted] Thanks for this answer.

      I'll try creating a new dedicated boot partition for Solus then. And yes... I've read Windows could mess up my linux partitions... But, I have a single ssd now.

      Thanks again!

        octavio

        I have found the "easiest" way to:

        1) Get your windows product key with nirsoft produkey (https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html). Its good to have this anyways.

        2) Install solus wiping the whole ssd clean. This will make sure you have a big enough efi partition. The default partition size by microsoft will cause you problems later by not being able to update linux kernels. Solus does not give a warning when the update fails.

        3) Install Windows 10 (media creation tool: https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10) wiping all but the roughly 500 MB efi partition through advanced partitioning options inside the windows installation. If you want a D-drive in windows make sure to leave enough gigabytes to the C-drive for solus.

        4) Finally install solus using the automatic install alongside Windows making sure to leave atleast 200 GB for Windows.

            Jumpy PS: The default Windows fast boot option needs to be disabled. It is actually a form of hibernation and locks down the C-drive for read only access for solus.

              If I were you I would just create another EFI boot partition, in gparted (flag it esp, boot)
              install solus and choose the new EFI partition when asked about bootloader
              and copy the Microsoft directory from the old EFI to the new one

              2 months later

              @bleui I think what you proposed is very reasonable. Do you know if copying that directory is not against any Windows licence or term? (I'll ask to their support in the meantime you ask).

              FTR - I was able to install Solus.

              • Manually partitioned my disc, (resized the Windows system partition).

              • Created a new FAT32 (ESP, boot) partition of 1024Mb (just in case) to avoid having size issues.

              • Installed Solus with the advance mode, selecting the ´/´ and ´swap´ partitions, after choosing the proper boot.

              • I had to create boot live, install ´efibootmgr´ and create my own .efi file and entry.

              • Now I'm able to boot to Solus. When I want to change to Windows, need to reboot to the bios firmware and change the booting order. Because of this I'm asking about copying the .efi files in the Microsoft dir, to ease the transition.


                Probably I should write this as a new discussion step-by-step to document the process. For now this should help.

              Unless you have very specific needs or a complex setup, which is not the case of most users, I recommend to use extend the EFI partition created by windows from 100Mb to 512Mb (thus using a single EFI partition).
              The reason is that the current Solus installed always select the first EFI partition it finds which result of some users wondering why they can't tell the installer to use the partition they have created for this specific purpose although it is correctly formatted, gets the flags, etc. or to some users not getting the bootloader installed at all because there wasn't enough free space on the default 100Mb partition created by windows.

              Regarding the preferred installation option, it mainly depends on your tastes: If you want to define the size of the partitions yourself or if you don't want to have a swap partition, etc. You'll have to use the "custom one". The automatic one is good enough for most users.

              https://github.com/kyrios123/solus-efi-guide