Finally got Linux Mint Downloaded

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Thanks everyone.

I'm getting so frustrated. I successfully created the bootable USB drive to load Linux Mint in what I believe they call live mode. I decided to install it in dual mode with Windows. There was an excellent step-by-step article that showed how to do it for a Windows 8.1 computer. Everything went smooth, even shrinking the C: drive and creating the swap, home and root partitions. Installation was complete. I was supposed to reboot and pick my choice between Mint and Windows. That didn't happen. I tried multiple time and it went staight to Windows. So now it appears I have Mint installed but can't run it. More google searches later it appears there is a problem with the "boot order". I read another good article by someone who had the same computer, an HP Pavillion, with the same problem (this article was on the Mint Forum). This person finally was able to get hers going but it was so confusing to me that I got a headache. She talked about going to a terminal and renaming files, downloading another program to another USB drive and running that while doing something else, etc... They pretty much said the issues are that Windows is so stingy about letting another operating system work along side it. They want Windows to be the ONLY operating system. They make it difficult. Maybe partially HP related as well. I really like Mint but I don't want to have to load it from a USB drive everytime and reset the settings everytime as well.

Can anyone offer a simpler solution? Barring that, would this problem not exist if I just loaded Linux Mint as the only program on my computer and just got rid of Windows. I'm really beginning to not like Windows more and more.
 
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Thanks QP.

I'll check them out. I'm so frustrated, mainly my own fault for being so dang computer illiterate, I'm ready to go for broke and just wipe out Windows and load Mint for better or worse. Just read a nice article by someone who describes the process to overwrite Windows with Mint and it sounds like something I can do. We shall see.
 
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Originally Posted By: Sierra048
Thanks QP.

I'll check them out. I'm so frustrated, mainly my own fault for being so dang computer illiterate, I'm ready to go for broke and just wipe out Windows and load Mint for better or worse. Just read a nice article by someone who describes the process to overwrite Windows with Mint and it sounds like something I can do. We shall see.
Just make a windows copy on case you want to put it back, delete windows and load Linux.
 
Originally Posted By: Sierra048
Thanks everyone.

I'm getting so frustrated.


Windows does not play nice with others. You do not own Windows: you purchase(d) a license to use it. Linux knows no ownership and exists for your benefit. Sometimes, the nice guys finish last.
 
Mash on the right side shift key while it boots. This should bring up the GRUB menu to select which OS to boot.
 
Originally Posted By: daves66nova
Originally Posted By: Sierra048
Thanks QP.

I'll check them out. I'm so frustrated, mainly my own fault for being so dang computer illiterate, I'm ready to go for broke and just wipe out Windows and load Mint for better or worse. Just read a nice article by someone who describes the process to overwrite Windows with Mint and it sounds like something I can do. We shall see.
Just make a windows copy on case you want to put it back, delete windows and load Linux.


Dave,

How would I go about doing this?

Mk378,

Thanks. I'll give that a try. Nothing else seemed to work.
 
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Originally Posted By: Sierra048
Mk378,

Thanks. I'll give that a try. Nothing else seemed to work.

I think it's F9 key on HP computers. This was described in the link I provided earlier.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: Sierra048
Mk378,

Thanks. I'll give that a try. Nothing else seemed to work.

I think it's F9 key on HP computers. This was described in the link I provided earlier.


Yep. Tried that. No matter what was selected, it always loaded Windows.
 
F9 is to select if you want to boot from the USB or the disk. Once it starts to boot from the disk, you have to tell GRUB whether you want Linux or Windows, since (if properly installed) they are both on the disk.
 
QP,

The first link you provided me was the ticket. She was having the same trouble I was having. Although I didn't quite understand it at first, I spent several hours in front of the computer trying things. I finally had success where she said to turn off "secure boot". Before doing that, even though Ubuntu was an option in the boot option, it did nothing when I selected it. After the change, and selecting Ubuntu it came up to the option for loading Cinnamon. I selected that and it loaded Mint.

Next obstacle was to try and get Mint to load on start-up. This is where I'm a little unsure. I did like was suggested and went to the terminal and typed in efibootmgr. It did indeed bring up everything she said it would and it showed Windows being booted first. Another poster to her thread said to just change the order in this file to have Ubuntu load first. Recommended using efibootmgr -o. When I typed this in it brought up a table with all of the "-" options, with "-o" being the change boot order option. So I see it but don't know how to swap the order using this "-o" option. Hpping if I can get this changed it might start Mint everytime and just manually choose Windows if and when I might want to use it. Does this sound about right? Most impotantly, can someone help me change the boot order in the efibootmge file?

Sounds redundant but I can't tell everyone how much I appreciate your time in trying to help a computer moron like myself. I feel like I'm learning something here, I'm just not quite sure what.
 
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Originally Posted By: Sierra048
Sounds redundant but I can't tell everyone how much I appreciate your time in trying to help a computer moron like myself. I feel like I'm learning something here, I'm just not quite sure what.
Take it easy on yourself there Sierra! Good for you wading in deep in new territory to learn something new. No 'moron' would ever attempt this, they'd of given up long ago.

Take careful notes on your journey so you can remember what worked and what didn't. It takes quite a bit of patience when dealing with confusers, not to mention learning a new OS. So few will ever attempt this. But you have, learning as you go, doing your research and educating yourself by the process.

That's a good thing!
cheers3.gif
 
Originally Posted By: sleddriver
Originally Posted By: Sierra048
Sounds redundant but I can't tell everyone how much I appreciate your time in trying to help a computer moron like myself. I feel like I'm learning something here, I'm just not quite sure what.
Take it easy on yourself there Sierra! Good for you wading in deep in new territory to learn something new. No 'moron' would ever attempt this, they'd of given up long ago.


+1. Dual booting is not for the timid. In my limited experience some years ago I swear I recall a Windows update breaking my GRUB menu, which the Windows update must have overwritten; and I went back to being a single-boot machine. My Linux install's /home directory was unencrypted so I was able to mount it and retrieve my data but these days I see *much* more value in running a second OS in a virtualized environment (where both can be run simultaneously).
 
Originally Posted By: sleddriver
Take it easy on yourself there Sierra! Good for you wading in deep in new territory to learn something new. ago.

+1

I am semi computer literate, yet never even attempted to set up a dual boot. I do have several Ubuntu installs on dedicated drives. The first one was a steep learning curve. It gets much easier after that.
 
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Dual booting is possible *if* Linux is installed after Windows, which you would be doing. Installing Windows last will wipe out the information on your boot disk about any other OS's.

Yes, Windows doesn't play nicely.
wink.gif


Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
First of all, if you have windows on your machine, you can't create one since windows occupies the entire disk; I believe many Linux installers will shrink the Windows partition as part of the install; see uc50's post.

That's generally what I do, if it was originally a Windows box and I think I might want to play a Windows game or two. If the Windows partition decides to squawk about anything, I don't hesitate to eliminate it completely, though. If it's something with a dated version of Windows, I just wipe it. I have set up dual boot for friends who had Windows XP machines and still wanted to keep an XP partition around, but wanted to try something a bit quicker for ordinary online usage.

uc50ic4more also mentioned how dual booting can occasionally cause GRUB issues and so forth. One does have to be cautious. I have Windows 8 of some form (I believe that's what it is, I don't go into it that often) and Mint with dual boot. I've had trouble a couple times due to secure boot (mostly with the Mint people playing with secure boot packages for no discernible reason, considering Mint doesn't support secure boot), but I've been able to keep both partitions fully functional under dual boot, as long as I make sure to do some checking of tables if Mint has decided to play around with any secure boot packages. Kernel upgrades have had no issues.

If one wishes to set up dual boot, the biggest stumbling block right now is secure boot. Some distros are okay with it and others are not. There isn't even consistency from one version of an OS to another, for that matter. One version of Mint had no trouble. The next did, so I had to deactivate secure boot, and then things went smoothly.

Of course, that's my biggest beef with the Mint people. They want their distro to be very user friendly and beginner friendly. Considering most boxes purchased these days will have secure boot, and the average new user isn't going to have a clue how to attend to turning secure boot off, much less fix problems that happen with spurious updates to secure boot packages, Mint not being secure boot compliant is shooting themselves in the foot.
 
I disabled secure boot because the article I referenced courtesy of Qutro Pete said it had to be done in order for it to work for that writer. Since I coudn't even get the Unbuntu option in the boot to work until I disabled it I'm guessing it was necessary in my situation. Honestly, without Googling "secure boot", I don't even know what its purpose is.

I found another good article on editing the boot order in efibootmgr. This writer claims it will work and provided the information on how to do it. The example given was actually pretty much my situation and showed screen shots that pretty much confirm it. So I'm going to take the chance and try it. I'm still a little nervous about messing up and causing unrecoverable damage but I'm ready to put this behind me one way or the other. I'll let you know shortly if it worked or not.
 
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Originally Posted By: Sierra048
Honestly, without Googling "secure boot", I don't even know what its purpose is.


The cynic in me notes that it is an agreement between Microsoft and manufacturers that ensures only Microsoft OS's are able to run on the hardware you thought you owned. It is postured as a security measure... To ensure that only Microsoft OS's get loaded on your hardware. I believe that it is possible to pay for a license that gets you an exemption? Here is a more neutral explanation:

Quote:
Microsoft Secure Boot is a component of Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system that relies on the UEFI specification’s secure boot functionality to help prevent malicious software applications and "unauthorized" operating systems from loading during the system start-up process.

While there is some concern that Microsoft Secure Boot will make it difficult to install Linux or other operating systems on a Windows 8 computer, the secure boot functionality in Windows 8 is primarily designed to protect users from rootkits and other low-level malware attacks by blocking unauthorized (non-signed) executables and drivers from being loaded during the boot process.
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
Of course, that's my biggest beef with the Mint people. They want their distro to be very user friendly and beginner friendly. Considering most boxes purchased these days will have secure boot, and the average new user isn't going to have a clue how to attend to turning secure boot off, much less fix problems that happen with spurious updates to secure boot packages, Mint not being secure boot compliant is shooting themselves in the foot.


The following are **not facts**. These are my vague understandings and are subject to me being completely off-base:

- Signing certificates for Secure Boot cost money
- The Mint folks - a very small global team led by one dude who I do not think makes his living with this - are all volunteers and I don't think this project has much of a budget
- For *some* reason, the Mint admins have chosen not to, or are otherwise unable to employ Canonical's signing certificate for Secure Boot
 
Well, here's where I'm at.

I changed the efibootmgr file as described and was able to change it. Thought to myself, "alright here we go". I rebooted and it went right to Windows. Talk about being dejected. So, just to try something in my control, I went back and changed the secure boot option back to enabled thinking I'd try it with my updated efibootmgr. No luck. Went straight to Windows at start up. So I tried to force it to load Linux in the boot option. No luck. Went right to Windows. So I go back and set secure boot to disabled again, rebooted, went to boot options, selected Ununtu and fortunately it loaded. Once I got back into Mint, I checked the efibootmgr file I thought had been changed. It had reverted back to the original without my changes.
crazy2.gif
I thought my changes had worked because I had to enter my password to go forward with the changes. I spent several hours trying to Google this topic/problem and found several good articles that might have solved my problem but they were so far above my understanding level (needed to do a host of things via the terminal in Linux, Grub2, partitions, creating files) that I decided to cut my losses and just accept the fact that, at least for now, I can load Linux Mint that's on my laptop, without needing to load via USB. As long as this is the case it's just a minor inconvenience to have to force it to load Mint at start-up. May be pessimistic but I just can't shake the feeling that going forward somethings going to happen to prevent me from even doing this. If it does I've still got the USB with Linux Mint on it. Hopefully I can get it loaded again, and if so, I'll do a complete new install, not a dual install, and just get rid of Windows.

Just curious, how many have just wiped Windows off of their computer and just loaded Linux Mint or any Linux program? If you have, any regrets? I'm the furthest thing there is from being a computer guru but I really don't like Windows.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice and help through this frustrating journey.
 
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