Trying to install Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon alongside Windows 7

Discussion in 'all things UNIX' started by Krusty, Jan 14, 2015.

  1. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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    Hi Linux Gurus,

    I've got absolutely no experience with Linux disto's at all but would like to install Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon alongside Windows 7 x64 SP1.

    I notice there is a known bug with Ubuntu - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TrustyTahr/ReleaseNotes#Boot.2C_installation_and_post-install

    Automatic install is broken on drives that contain partitions that either do not have an operating system installed (eg. a user data partition like /home on Linux or D: on Windows), or partitions that have Windows 8 installed. Selecting automatic install (or upgrade) on these systems will result in the whole drive being wiped and all existing data will be lost. There are also problems dealing with systems with multiple drives. This bug is present in released media of 14.04 and 14.04.1. If you have a drive with any pre-existing partitions, or multiple drives, then you should use manual partitioning. Ensure you have backups. (1265192)

    Where I'm at:

    • Firstly I made image backups of my C, Reserved and Recovery drives.
    • Downloaded linuxmint-cinnamon-64bit.iso.
    • Burnt a live DVD.
    • Started my laptop from the DVD.
    • I've got to stage 11 here where I received a failed to install message.
    • At this point I did not know what to do so I shut down my system, then restarted.
    • On starting my system I was prompted to run chkdsk, which successfully completed, then after a restart Windows started as normal.
    • Checking Computer Managerment showed I had successfully shrank my Windows Partition and a new partition had been created. Great!
    • Once again I started my machine using the live DVD and once again I tried to install.
    • This time I chose to use the advanced menu and tried to choose the new partition. This didn't work though as "This partition has no root 'something'..." or similar.
    • OK, now I'm in over my head. I shut down and booted from my Symantec System Recovery 2013 recovery disk, deleted C & the new partition and restored my original partitions. This is where I am currently.
    If there is someone who can give clear step by step instructions to a potential beginner linux user I would be eternally grateful.

    Thanks in advance,
    Krusty
     
  2. wat0114

    wat0114 Registered Member

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    When you go to the advanced options for manual partitioning of the drive, you need to set up something like seen in the screenshot. Of course you don't want to be touching the Windows partition (in my case I don't have one). However, for this approach you need to be careful and understand what to do. Too bad it's not working the automatic way. It should.

    EDIT

    sorry, I forgot to elaborate, the Linux partitions are:

    sdb1 = / (root)
    sdb2 = swap
    sdb3 = /home
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Jan 14, 2015
  3. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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    "However, for this approach you need to be careful and understand what to do."

    That's why I posted here, to find out what to do.

    Thanks.
     
  4. wat0114

    wat0114 Registered Member

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    There's a very extensive, well written guide with screenshots here that illustrates manual partitioning for installing Ubuntu alongside Windows far better than I could. You might want to print it before starting. it was created by Wilders member Mrkvonic.
     
  5. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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    :thumb: Thanks for the link - very informative!

    It looks like I've got more homework to do than I thought.

    Cheers,
    Krusty
     
  6. wat0114

    wat0114 Registered Member

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    Good luck!

    As a possible alternative, there's Ubuntu-based linux Lite, a really nice beginner-friendly distro that might work better for you. I used one of the earlier releases for several months and it's excellent.

    Possible alternative #2: trying out Linux installations on a virtual machine, using free virtual Box, for example, will afford you care-free experimentation, since you can't harm your real system.
     
  7. JConLine

    JConLine Registered Member

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    I purchased a new laptop that had Windows 7 pre-installed to a 750GB HD. Like you, I wanted to have a dual-boot system. The first thing I did was to make a LiveCD of GParted. I then booted with GParted and resized the Windows partition to make room for my Linux install. I gave myself about 100Gb for Llnux. Within the free space I created, I then created an Extended partition. Then, within the Extended partition I created three logical partitions: root, home, and swap. I formatted the home and root partitions to ext4. I gave the / partition 20GB, the /home 76GB, and the /swap 4GB. I then booted with the LinuxMint Live Cd and installed LinuxMint to /. When asked about the bootloader be sure to insall it to Windows MBR, which is usually sda; it is a checkbox and easy to miss so be looking for it. I have installed numerous dual-boot systems and so far I've never had a problem. There are many good tutorials and before you start you can make an image of your hard drive using Clonezilla which is free and has always worked for me. Good luck!

    Jim
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2015
  8. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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    Thanks Jim!

    I'll give it a go soon. As long as I've got image backups of my drives as the are I can't really do any damages. I use Symantec System Recovery to image my drives by the way. ;)

    Cheers,
    Krusty
     
  9. AutoCascade

    AutoCascade Registered Member

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    You can install Cinnamon onto some other Linux distros.

    I've got Cinnamon running on Ubuntu 14.04 right now and for the most part you'd never know it's not Mint though Apparmor is up and running by default so it's a safer environment.

    IMO it's Cinnamon that makes Mint attractive to Windows users not Mint itself. I've had Cinnamon running on Fedora also.
     
  10. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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    Please excuse my ignorance but are you suggesting I can install Ubuntu first, then install Cinnamon on the Ubuntu partition? Is there an easy way to do this?

    Thanks.
     
  11. AutoCascade

    AutoCascade Registered Member

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    I just did that earlier today. 14.04 not 14.10 then the following:

    http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/07/new-cinnamon-ubuntu-14-04-ppa-stable

    Install Cinnamon 2.2 via PPA in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
    Open a new Terminal window and enter the following two commands, entering your user password when/if prompted:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lestcape/cinnamon

    sudo apt-get update

    sudo apt-get install cinnamon

    You’ll see a blur of commands whizz by. Wait until these come to a halt then log out of Unity (or whichever desktop environment you’re currently using). From the Unity Greeter click on the Ubuntu (or GNOME, LXDE, etc.) icon to open the session selector. Find the ‘Cinnamon’ session, click on it, and then proceed to login.

    That’s all you need to do. To switch back to Unity simply repeat the steps above, selecting ‘Ubuntu desktop’ in place of Cinnamon.
     
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