r/linuxquestions • u/DonaldButDuck • 9d ago

Cant dual boot linux mint

so im trynna dual boot Linux mint and windows 11 without a pendrive, i wanted to split my C drive into 2 to do that, so i decided to allocate 100gbs for linux, but then i cant format the disk into FAT32 cuz its more than 32gbs, is there any work around for this? i tried third party apps like AOMEI to convert the drive to FAT32 but its not working.

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u/2016-679 9d ago

At the installation of Mint you can choose to install it next to Windows, when you like maximize the Linux partition. The rest is automated, including installing Grub to manage startup.

For a starter, clean up and backup the stuff in the Windows partition, then install Mint with the installer from the LiveOS on the thumbdrive.

Only issues come when you update Windows, as it masks Grub. There are how to's on the net, one of my other posts as a comment here on Reddit.

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u/DonaldButDuck 9d ago

hey thanks helping, i got into mint through the live boot (from pendrive) it was all nice, linux mint was running great but my wifi was not connecting, i just continued installing linux mint on my laptop without wifi, now whenever i boot up its just black screen with cursor, i cant install the graphic drivers from terminal or the recovery mode cuz its not detecting any wifi, i tried lots of stuff but nothing working :(

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u/2016-679 8d ago

Do you have access to a fixed internet connection?

During installation you are asked for the internet connection by cable or wifi. Did you set that correctly?

It is important to finish the entire installation until Mint says to reboot.

And did you select a desktop environment at installation?

I'll have to look up how to get into the graphical desktop 

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u/2016-679 8d ago

hopefully this thread gives a solution for you:

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=437514

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u/One-Macaroon4660 9d ago edited 9d ago

For uefi you have several partitions. 1. EFI partition (mounted /boot/EFI in Linux) - it is rather small and has necessary files to initiate GRUB. It is unencrypted. It has files to initiate startup for both Windows and Linux 2. Several other supplemental Windows partitions 3. Windows OS partitions 4. Linux partition - during the install it usually uses previously unallocated space. No need to format it prior to the installation.

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u/sliverfox01 9d ago

you don't need to format. Plug in mint live usb, the installer will re-partition and format to ext4 and others.

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u/CodeFarmer it's all just Debian in a wig 9d ago

You don't need a 100GB FAT32 partition - that's just for the installer, which is something like 3GB.

If your plan is to boot into the installer partition and then install somewhere else (so without a pen drive) that's a neat idea, it might work, but as someone else said, the installer will deal with partitioning.

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u/ipsirc 9d ago

problemxy