Intro
I installed 'ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64' alongside with Windows 8 on my laptop computer. Earlier I thought it was quite a challenge after hearing the problems my friends faced while and after installing ubuntu on computers which already had windows OS.
I will write down how I go through the process and installed ubuntu successfully. I hope it will help others who are facing the same problems to install Ubuntu alongside with pre-installed Windows.
Starting the process
First I did an internet research on how to do this and watched some YouTube videos. I found some useful links which give a good guidance. Following links were the most useful.
- Install Ubuntu 14.04 alongside Windows 8.1 in 10 easy steps
- Installing Ubuntu on a Pre-Installed Windows 8 (64-bit) System (UEFI Supported)
- Dual-Boot Ubuntu 14.04 and Windows 8
From the above links I found the first one more helpful and I used the it mostly throughout the installing process.
Making the Bootable USB Drive
Next I downloaded the Universal-USB-Installer-1.9.5.9 to make a bootable Ubuntu USB drive(One can make a bootable CD/DVD instead). You can find it here. Universal-USB-Installer.Since I had already downloaded the ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64, I made the bootable USB drive by filling the 3 fields with ubuntu, path to the ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso and inserted USB drive respectively. (You can download the ubuntu .iso file from Download Ubuntu Desktop)
Making free disk space
After making the bootable USB I shrinked my C: drive by 100GB to make free disk space to use for the new ubuntu OS. Use Disk Management to create and format hard disk partitions.*Important
**In Windows 8 there is a special menu in which we have options such as- Turn off (which is actual shutting down of the machine unlike the normal shut down which will put the laptop to a state of sleep-hibernate).
- Troubleshooting (changing UEFI firmware settings etc.)
- Booting from an external drive (USB drive/CD/DVD).
We need to access this menu several times during the process. We can access this menu by going to shut down menu and then press restart while pressing and holding shift key.
Turn off secure boot
Then the links suggest to turn off secure boot. To do this we have to go into your UEFI boot settings from the special menu mentioned above. UEFI stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface which is a standard firmware interface for PCs, designed to replace BIOS (basic input/output system).*In my Laptop I could not disable secure boot because it is not allowed. I was a bit confused at this point but it turned out that it did not matter at the end.
Boot from the USB Drive
Then I went to the special menu and choose to boot from the bootable USB drive. Then Ubuntu OS started. I selected to install ubuntu and went through the installation process.When I came to the Installation type selection it did not give the option 'Install Ubuntu alongside with Windows 8' as shown in the videos.
Partitioning the hard disk
Then I continued. In the next page I partitioned the free disk space I created earlier.- The first partition is for Ubuntu and I allocated 50GB. In the size box I entered 50000, selected logical as the partition type, selected beginning of this space, chose ext4 journaling file system as the file system and chose '/' for the mount point.
- The second partition is for home folder. For the size I allocated 38GB(= 100-50- 2 x 6 = rest of free disk space - 2 x RAM). Again I chose logical as the partition type, selected beginning of this space, chose ext4 journaling file system as the file system and chose ' /home' for the mount point.
- The third partition is for swap space. I left the size as the rest of the free disk space, chose logical as the file system and beginning of this space as the location.and chose "swap area" for the 'use as' field.
Then I went through the next steps and and then Ubuntu installation started. After finishing it I rebooted and then both Windows 8 and Ubuntu 14.04.1 was available. :)
*When you reboot if it is going straight into Windows, boot repair and fixing the boot loader will fix it. (the steps to do it are mentioned in the first link I gave)
I hope this will be helpful.
Cheers!
