How To Install Ubuntu 14.04 Alongside Windows 7

This post shows how to dual-boot Ubuntu fourteen.04 and Windows seven on a computer with UEFI firmware. Notation that the computer I used for the tutorial is not an OEM one. Rather, it is a custom-congenital computer, with an ASRock motherboard and Intel Cadre i3 processor. All the same, if you follow this guide stride-by-step, you should be able to utilise it to dual-boot Ubuntu xiv.04 and Windows 7 on whatever figurer with UEFI firmware on a single hard drive.

An assumption made here is that you lot have Windows 7 already installed on the target difficult drive. All the same if necessary, yous tin always install information technology afresh. And then based on that assumption, hither are the steps involved:

Recover space for installing Ubuntu 14.04 by shrinking the Windows 7 C bulldoze
Install Ubuntu 14.04 on the recovered space. This assumes that you've already downloaded an installation prototype of Ubuntu 14.04 and burned or transferred it to an advisable installation media.
Ready the default boot managing director for the figurer

Before we proceed to the instructions, this screenshot shows the partitions that the Windows 7 installer will likely create, equally seen from the Windows seven partition manager. Note that the C drive is near 420 GB and the EFI partition is about 100 MB. In the first step of the installation process, space that will be used to install Ubuntu 14.04 will accept to exist recovered from the C drive.

This is what yous'll see from the Ubuntu 14.04 installer. It offers a much clearer detail almost the layout of the number and type of partitions than the Windows 7 partition manager. /dev/sda1 is the 100 MB EFI sectionalization that you saw in the previous screenshot.

With all that introduction out of the style, allow'south go this affair washed.

Step 1. Shrink Windows 7'south C Drive: To compress the C drive, launch the Windows 7 sectionalisation manager and right-click on the bar that represents the C bulldoze. Select Compress Volume from the context bill of fare. You should be able to recover enough disk space to install Ubuntu. A detailed description of how to accomplish this step is available in this forum post.

Step 2. Install Ubuntu 14.04: Ubuntu xiv.04 will be installed in the infinite that was recovered from footstep 1. To begin this step, reboot the estimator with the installation media you created in the optical drive or in a USB port. Start the installer and click through until you get to the step shown in this screenshot. It is very probable that the installer will inform y'all that "This computer currently has no detected operating systems. What would you like to do?" Select the Something else option, and then click Continue.

That should open the installer'due south Avant-garde Sectionalization Tool's window. You should encounter all the partitions on the system, including the space that was recovered from Windows seven'due south C bulldoze. That infinite should exist marked as "gratis infinite." To offset creating partitions to install Ubuntu 14.04, select it, and then click on the + button straight below it.

That should open up the installer'south division editor. If you are new to the concept of disk partitions in Linux and creating partitions in Ubuntu Desktop, information technology is highly recommended that you read Guide to disks and disk partitions in Linux and How to install Ubuntu 14.04 on encrypted MBR partitions. For each segmentation that you'll create at this pace, all you demand to modify are the values for "Size," "Use as" and "Mount point." And considering a few of the partitions needed were already created during the installation of Windows 7, simply partitions for / (root), /home and Bandy will need to be created for Ubuntu 14.04 – in that order.

For the root sectionalisation, a disk space of 20 GB (xx,000 MB) should be more enough. The minimum required is actually 6.four GB, so the extra should take care of future growth in deejay usage. For file system (Utilise as), you may select the default (Ext4) or fifty-fifty btrfs. Be sure to select / from the "Mount point" menu. OK.

For the /home sectionalisation, assign the disk space you think you need and select /habitation for the mount betoken. OK.

For the Swap partition, a size of 4 GB (4000 MB) should be enough. From the "Use as" carte du jour, select swap surface area. OK.

Back to the main sectionalization window, you should see all the newly created partitions. Did you detect that we did non create a kick partition? That's because on these systems, the EFI partition, which on the system used for this tutorial is /dev/sda1, serves as the kick division. Boot files for Grub volition be installed there. Chow (the GRand Unified Bootloader) is the boot program used by Ubuntu and virtually all Linux distributions. Earlier clicking Install Now, change the entry in the "Device for boot loader installation" from /dev/sda to /dev/sda1. Continue with the rest of the installation.

Step three. Set the Default Boot Managing director: After Step 2 has completed successfully, reboot the reckoner. Before it reboots into the default boot device, press the F key that will accept you to the boot menu. For my computer, it is the F11 primal. This screenshot shows the entries in the kick carte of the computer used for this tutorial. The AHCI P3: WDC W5000… entry is for the hard drive used for this installation. The OS entries are Ubuntu and Windows Kick Manager. If y'all select the AHCI P3: WDC W5000… entry, the computer will not boot.

That was the example with my computer. To boot into Ubuntu 14.04 or Windows seven, select the advisable OS entry. After verifying that you can kicking into Windows 7 and Ubuntu fourteen.04, you should get into your organization's UEFI setup utility and fix the default boot device to Ubuntu, which should have entries for Ubuntu 14.04 and windows 7 in the Grub carte. Y'all might want to read Kick managers and boot devices on a PC with UEFI firmware for a brief discussion of the discipline in this step.