After evaluating every comment you left me in the last post and testing every OS via virtual machines, I’ve decided that my first option when dual booting will be CachyOS, leaving Fedora KDE and endeavourOS as the runner ups. Now I’m at the point where I have to actually do the dual boot. I’ve found some videos and posts where they show how to do it but I haven’t managed to find any case like mine, since I want to go from Linux Mint Debian Edition single boot, to LMDE + CachyOS/Fedora/endeavour. I’m doing this post to ask some questions:
- Being my case pretty specific, is it the process any different than some other builds like Arch + Cachy, Ubuntu + endeavour, etc., or everytime it’s the same process whatever are the OS’s I install? Do I have to have in mind anything in particular in my case? Any extra tips?
- Can I dual boot without having to make a total reset of my actual OS to install it again altogether with the secondary OS? Is it less, equally or more safe/efficient?
- Do you have any guide in general that you find to be good/useful in this matter therefore I can take advantage of?
Please have in mind I’m a total beginner on these things and they still feel pretty overwhelming to me. So, sorry if I ask something dumb and thank you very much in advance!!
Are you installing your secondary OS on the same drive or on a separate SSD?
Do terms like partition, file system and bootloader mean anything to you?
I will install it in a new SSD.
Partition is the space an OS reserves for it’s installation and booting, I’d say. File system doesn’t sound too familiar to me. Bootloader I guess would be the system that a PC uses to boot an OS like GRUB or Limine?
I will look these terms up to see if I’m as lost as I think hahah
if it’s going to be on a separate SSD, it should be pretty straightforward: insert live USB for your secondary OS, go through its installer and be careful which SSD you select for it to install on (I recommend backing up all your important data before any procedure like this, just incase you make a mistake or something weird happens). and then you just need to make sure your bootloader knows about both OSes. the installer might automatically detect your existing OS and configure your bootloader to know about both. if not, you might have to update your grub config file after the installation is complete.
I’ll look into that. Though I don’t understand the last part. Can I go grub for LMDE and Limine for CachyOS or do I have to choose one? I understand you described it in case we were going with Grub for both. Is it with Limine similar? I don’t even know if what I’m asking makes any sense. Thanks and sorry in advance haha
since I want to go from Linux Mint Debian Edition single boot, to LMDE + CachyOS/Fedora/endeavour. I’m doing this post to ask some questions:
Splitting a partition through GParted is relatively straightforward.
Boot into a GParted iSO with a thumb-drive, determine which partition you want to modify which is quite easy if you know the size of it, once you figured that out you should be able to shrink “Free” space to make room for your new partition which will house your new distro.
Debian is very resilient, I’ve swapped my SSD, GPU, Motherboard, CPU and RAM without having to reinstall the operating system, all it needed was to remove the old packages/drivers to then install the new packages/drivers.
Edit: I recommend all beginners to learn a tiny bit of BASH, whenever you distro hop like this BASH is what your “terminal” or “console” will typically use for shell commands, the main thing that differs between Arch, Fedora and Debian is package management (apt, yum, pacman, etc) and how software is installed.
If you need advice or suggestions feel free to shoot me a DM!
read up on Secure Boot and consider turning it off if you can. makes life easier generally
Noted. Thanks!!
