I finally started the move over to Linux, and installed a dual boot system. So far liking it, except for 1 or 2 things. The big one is the process of dual booting.

I vaguely remember a friend a bunch of years ago always having the option to pick the OS on startup. Not having to hit F11 to pick the OS. Is there a way to do this? Everything I’ve found so far is about windows dual booting, which isn’t exactly helping.

Here’s my setup, so there’s an idea of what I’m working with.

Motherboard: MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC SSD 1 (Windows): Predator GM7000 2TB SSD 2(Linux Mint): Crucial P5 Plus 2TB

I just want to always have the choice of OS when starting up, without always having to hit F11 to get to the boot option. Any help is appreciated.

Edit: In case it matters, I installed windows on SSD 1 without SSD 2 installed, then did the same with Linux, removed SSD 1, and installed Linux to SSD 2 (using their respective slots) then put both in. So I didn’t install Linux with the dual boot option on the install screen.

Edit2: Got it working! As suggested, I had to change the boot order so Linux was primary instead of windows. Then had to change the timeout for grub from 0 to 30 (tried 5 but it was still too fast) and once I was able to see grub, I had the option to let it go into mint, run windows, or just pick Mint without waiting.

Way easier than going about it thinking windows first, since it refused to acknowledge i had another OS installed. Now I get to play around with drivers and software, and figure out why I can’t align my multiple monitors properly.

Thanks everyone!

  • drzoidberg@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    I went with Cinnamon Edition of Mint.

    Ah so boot with Linux as the first (windows is currently first) and use Grub to get into windows when I want?

    Now, does it matter that both OS are on their own drive entirely? I took out the windows drive when I installed Linux on the other SSD. I can run each OS completely independent. Saw, I forget where, that this was the best way to install so they’re fully independent of one another.

    • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      Yep. Boot grub (linux) first and it can do windoes when you choose.

      It does not matter that the OS’es are on different physical drives, GRUB can index them just fine. Bootloader on one drive that can boot from multiple other drives is very common and I’ve set it up multiple times, as it is nice to have physical separation between OS’es and not have to deal with having 8 partitions of hell on one poor abused drive. The only issue that may arise is if you add or remove other physical drives or move the locations of existing drives as sometimes that can change how grub indexes them and it breaks. But that’s fairly easy to avoid if you pay attention and try not to touch bootable drives.

    • BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      That’s not a problem at all, so long as the first boot device is the Linux drive.

      GRUB has no issue chain-loading the windows bootloader. You can even set GRUB to default to Windows if you want, it’ll just show the menu for a while (whatever you set the timeout to be, I find 3 seconds to be plenty) and if nothing is selected, it will hand off to Windows.

      If you want to boot Linux, just hit the down arrow key when you see the menu to stop the countdown and choose what you want to boot, then hit enter.

    • ProjectPatatoe@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      No its ok. When you jave both plugged in. Do a grub update (i forget the command) but then it’ll add windows to the grub list when it sees it.