Install Ubuntu 15.04 alongside Windows 8.1

Question

I know the question is repeated but my question pertains to a very specific issue and is likely to be useful for future users who would install 15.04.

I read the original answer and it says there would be no problems of UEFI (Pre-installed Windows 8/8.1) while installing Ubuntu 15.04 unlike here, here and here.

From the original answer:

If however, you are using 15.04+, rejoice!, in all tests I have done with 15.04+ there was no need to do any of the steps mentioned here, so enjoy Ubuntu in all of it's booting glory!.

I wanted to ask if there are any pre-requisites while trying to install Ubuntu 15.04 (not 14.04) (with respect to UEFI, in Preinstalled Windows 8/8.1) and is it safe to assume that Ubuntu 15.04 would get installed correctly by creating the Live USB stick (as mentioned in the Ubuntu Website/guides) ?

Also, if possible please brief about the changes Ubuntu 15.04 incorporated which makes this carefree dual boot installation possible ?

Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

Yep, there should be no issues. I dual booted 8.1 and KUbuntu 15.04 for a while and even managed to uninstall it when I didn't need it anymore to just have Windows 8.1 with no issues. All while on UEFI, I didn't try it on ATA though but both ways it should work flawlessly.

Answer 2

I did this last night on my macbook, it took me a while to solve some mac specific problems which I will annotate accordingly below:

Dual boot windows 8.1/ubuntu 15.04 on macbook 11,1

1. Create UEFI only windows media (required as macbook wants to boot to BIOS otherwise)

   1.1 To do this you need a modifiable boot disk (bootable usb) which can be created with the windows media creationo tool](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-IE/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media). Alternatively (as this tool didn't work behind my university firewall) you can use Rufus and a downloaded ISO - a few sites host un-modified iso image files.

   1.2 You then need to move or delete the bootmgr file to force booting to UEFI on systems like the macbook that fail-safe to BIOS. Open terminal, mount the bootable usb, navigate to the bootable disk and type

   mv bootmgr bootmgr.bak

2. Create empty GPT partition (warning: this will erase all data on the selected disk so chose carefully!)

   2.1 Boot into the windows media and enter the command prompt (troubleshoot etc.)

   2.2 Confirm it is booting in EUFI mode with the following commands

   wpeutil UpdateBootInfo

   reg query HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control /v PEFirmwareType

   2.3 Launch diskpart, select the relevant disk, clean it and convert it to GPT partition table , exit then turn off the computer to reboot into the installer.

   diskpart

   list disk

   sel disk 0

   clean

   convert gpt

   exit

   exit

   Turn off the computer

3. Install windows and create partitions

   3.1 Boot into windows installer

   3.2 Select the empty space, create new disk partition (it will create a few small partitions and the windows system partition in the space you specify)

   3.3 Select remaining empty space and create new partition for you later linux install, optionally create additional partition for swap space and other partitions for data storage/share. A small note here that if you really do have a GPT partition still then you will be able to create more than four partitions, if not it is still MBR).

   3.4 Select the windows install partition and click next then run through installer.

4. Boot ubuntu installer from a bootable USB in UEFI mode

   4.1 Hold down the option key while booting and select EFI

   4.2 Confirm the Ubuntu installer is in EFI mode by the presence of /sys/firmware/efi, if it isn't there it is booted in bios mode

   4.3 Run the installer

   4.3 Select language and when it comes to partitioning select other (it is probably fine to just do the install alongside but if you have predefined all the disk space it will default to sharing the windows disk and ask you to resize)

   4.4 Select the partition you created for the linux install to mount as / and format to ext3 or ext4

   4.5 Optionally select the disk to use as swap space

   4.6 Install the boot loader on the same disk you install linux (not sure if this is important - or even if I did this as it was getting late - sorry!)

   4.7 Run the installer and reboot

5. At this point you won't be able to boot into windows but you can boot into Ubuntu. Use ubuntu to fix the partition table then you will have both systems bootable.

   5.1 Launch terminal

   5.2 Fix GPT partition table by launching gdisk, enter expert mode and create a new protective MBR, then write to disk and exit.

   sudo gdisk /dev/sdX

   x

   n

   w

6. Enjoy, reboot and you should have access to both operating systems.

   6.1. If you are running a macbook 11,1 the following will fix the wifi on ubuntu

   sudo apt-get update

   sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source

P.S. This is my first post here so open to suggestions! I also couldn't put in more links because I don't have enough reputation points but there should be enough information there for you to find sources.