It's quite popular among new Linux users to use two operating systems on a computer - Windows as a secondary system just in case, and Linux as a primary system to learn. One of the most popular systems for beginners is Ubuntu, and most users still use Windows 7 and consider it the best operating system. Despite all the problems, she remains popular.

In this article, we'll take a look at how Ubuntu is installed next to Windows 7. Thinking about it, this is the easiest option that could be.

Installing Ubuntu alongside Windows 7

This is Windows 7, it uses a regular bootloader and does not yet know what UEFI is, so there will be no problems during installation. I am assuming that you already have Windows 7 installed on your computer and that you are going to install Ubuntu as a second system.

Preparing a hard drive in Windows

I have already written in more detail about what partitions and why are needed in the article partitioning a disk for Linux. But that's not the point. Now you have Windows and it takes up the entire hard drive. We need to separate a little space from it, and at the same time make it so that nothing breaks and everything works. We could use the Gparted program directly from the Linux or Acronis boot image, but the safest way is to use the standard Windows tools. Click on the icon "My computer" right click and open "Control":

Then select from the left column "Disk Management":

Here you need to find a way to allocate some memory under Linux. Usually Windows has two disks, let's switch to Linux terminology and call them partitions. The first is C: this is the main partition on which the operating system is installed. The second is the D: drive, where files, games and other data are located. It is advisable not to touch the system partition at all, but to separate the space from drive D. But if you have already decided to reduce the system partition, for example, because you only have drive C, then in no case do not touch the beginning of the partition, you can only cut off from the end. And so, first we need to reduce the section. Therefore, mark the desired volume, right-click on it, click "Shrink Volume":

In the window that opens, you need to enter the amount of free space to which you want to shrink this volume:

We will need about 100 GB for Linux, at least 30 GB for the root partition, 10 GB for other partitions, and about 60 GB for the home partition. This is quite enough for you, so that later you don’t have to think about what to do in order to have more memory. When you select the volume, click "Compress".

When the compression is complete, an empty space will appear in front of you. This completes the work with Windows. Further partitioning is best done from Linux. Almost everything is ready to install windows 7 and ubuntu.

Burning bootable media

Next, we need to burn Ubuntu to our media, for example, a USB flash drive. Since we are working on Windows, we will use the Rufus utility. Download and run the program. In it, select the flash drive you are going to record on, then go down below and find "Create Boot Image", select "ISO image":

Then select the disc image you want to burn and click "Start":

When the recording is completed, you can restart your computer.

Preparing a disk in Ubuntu

Next, you need to restart your computer and boot from the media you just burned. I won't tell you how it's done. If you are going to install Linux, then you probably already know how to work with the BIOS. When the Ubuntu image starts, you will need to immediately press any key to select the language:

Select "Russian" and press "Run Ubuntu without installing". We need to run the system without installation because this way you will have more freedom in case of any problems.

When the system starts, immediately open the installer. While I will be looking at Ubuntu 16.04 stable, this will definitely work for Ubuntu 17.04, 17.10 and newer. Nothing has changed there, except for the desktop wallpaper.

In the first step of the installer, select the language:

Then do not forget to check the boxes that you need to install updates and additional software:

On the next screen, we can already move on to working with the disk. The installer itself identified Windows 7 and beginners, those who are afraid to go into the disk setup themselves can select this item and install Ubuntu next to Windows 7 in automatic mode. But we will go the other way and look at manual disk partitioning, so choose "Another variant":

Here we see the free space that we have allocated for Linux, I have 22 gigabytes, this will be more than enough to install the test system, but I recommend you take about 100 GB and definitely not less than 50. We have to create three partitions - a swap partition , root partition and home partition. First we make a swap partition. To do this, select free space and click the button "+" :

The size of the partition must be equal to the amount of RAM, and select the file system "Swap Partition":

The next partition is the root one, the size of the partition is from 30 GB, the minimum size is 8 GB, but it's better to take more so that you don't have to think about where to get the memory later. For example, in my working system, which has been installed for a year now, 17 gigabytes have been used on the root partition, despite the fact that I did not install any games or heavy applications. We select the Ext4 file system, and the mount point, the place where this partition will be connected in the file system, is naturally "/".

The last one is the home partition. It takes up all the remaining space, the file system is also ext4, and the mount point is /home.

System installation

Now everything is ready to proceed with the installation. We leave the bootloader as it is, let it be installed on this disk. It will transfer the Windows bootloader to the system partition, and write itself to the MBR. The installed Widnows will be detected and you can access it from the menu during boot. When finished press the button "Install Now":

Next, you still have to create a new user, select a time zone, keyboard layout and wait. There is nothing specific here, so see Installing Ubuntu 17.04 for information on that.

Often, personal computer users wonder how to install two operating systems Windows and linux. In this article, we will describe the installation process of the most popular operating system of the Linux family called ubuntu next to the new OS from Microsoft Windows 10. For example, let's take the image of the latest version of Ubuntu with serial number 16.04. This version of Ubuntu is the most recent distribution from Canonical Ltd. In addition, this version of Ubuntu uses such innovations as file system ZFS, new kernel v.4.4 and new version of package installer Apt 1.2.

Installing Ubuntu alongside Windows

First of all, to install Ubuntu 16.04, we need a computer with Windows 10 installed on it. For example, we will take a laptop with a dozen. After that we need Ubuntu 16.04 ISO Image. You can download the latest ISO image from the official website www.ubuntu.com. The site provides images for both 32 and 64 bit systems. In our case, we will use a 64-bit image. The downloaded ISO-disk image with the distribution kit must be written to an optical disc. This can be done with programs such as Ashampoo Burning Studio or Nero Burning ROM 2016.

If you don't have an optical drive, you can use a Linux bootable media creation utility called UNetbootin.

After burning the disk, we will reboot the laptop and boot from the disk when the system starts. To boot from disk, many laptops and desktops use a special boot menu to select a boot device using the F11 or F12 keys. In our case, the boot menu is called by the F12 key.

After selecting our disk, the Ubuntu 16.04 installer will start loading, after which we will get to the bootloader menu.

In the installer window, select the right button Install Ubuntu, after which we will get to a window in which we can select the installation option, as well as the local disk where the installation will be performed.

In our case, we are interested in the first installation option. Other options allow you to completely format the local drive and encrypt it, select or create a new local drive.

Therefore, be careful when choosing other options for installing Ubuntu, as this can lose important data stored in Windows 10.

We move on. Select the first option and click the Continue button. This action will take us to a window where we can allocate disk space for Ubuntu. Since Linux OS will be installed on one local disk with Windows 10, it follows that we will also allocate space for Ubuntu on one disk.

As you can see in the image above, Windows 10 resides on a single 48.3 GB local drive. The ten itself on the disk takes 27.7 GB, but the Linux OS offers to bite off our one local disk 20.1 GB. If the auto-allocated size under Linux OS is too large for you, you can always reduce it by clicking on the link below " advanced section editor". Having decided on the size of the local disk for the OS, we will continue the installation by pressing the button Install now.

After completing this action, we will get to the time zone selection window.

After selecting the time zone, the installer will take us to the language selection window.

After choosing the language, we will go to the Ubuntu user settings window. On this page, enter the username, computer name, and password. After filling in the user data, click the button Continue.

This will be the last step in setting up the Linux OS installer, and after that, the process of installing Ubuntu on a single disk with Windows 10 will begin.

In the final window, we will see a message about successful installation, as well as a button on it Restart, which we will press.

After the reboot, we will see that the standard Linux operating system bootloader called .

The GNU GRUB bootloader menu shows four items, two of which are known to us. The first item will launch the Ubuntu OS itself. The second and fourth are designed to check the RAM using the utility Memtest86+. The fourth point will launch Windows 10. Moving on, we will select the second installed Ubuntu OS to start. At the download stage, we will be taken to the password entry window.

After entering the password, the operating system will boot on one Windows 10 computer.

Since the Linux OS is installed on the same local drive along with a dozen, we will boot Windows 10 and see where it is located. After downloading the top ten, run the add-on "". In the add-on we will see several local drives. Two drives of 14.72 GB and 4 GB refer to the Ubuntu operating system. From these two disks, it can be seen that the ten did not recognize the Linux OS file system, unlike their two disks.

The example shows that even a novice PC user can install a second Ubuntu 16.04 OS on one disk along with Windows 10.

Booting Ubuntu 16.04 from a bootable USB drive

In the previous example, we used an optical disc to install the Linux OS. In this example, we will describe the option to download Linux OS installation files. from a bootable USB drive. For example, we need one USB flash drive with a size of 2 GB or more. To create a bootable drive from a USB flash drive, we need a utility UNetbootin. This utility can be downloaded from its official website https://unetbootin.github.io. UNetbootin is distributed for several operating systems, so you can create a bootable flash drive on both Windows and Linux with Mac OS. Once downloaded, the utility can be launched immediately as it is portable.

Now we use one of the two images of 32 or 64 bit Ubuntu OS downloaded from the official website. To do this, in the block Disk image»Choose one of the downloaded images. Also in blocks A type" and " Carrier»Choose a flash drive. In our case, the flash drive has the letter " D:\»

After the settings have been made, press the OK button, after which the creation of a bootable USB drive with the Ubuntu operating system will begin.

Installing virtual Ubuntu 16.04 alongside Windows 10

If you do not want to bother with installing Ubuntu on the same local disk with ten, then you can use the utility virtual box. The utility is distributed with a license GNU GPL 2, so anyone can download it for free from the official website www.virtualbox.org.

Thanks to this utility, the user will be able to use all the features of the Ubuntu operating system directly on a computer running Windows 10. For this example, we need one of the Ubuntu images and the VirtualBox program itself. Installing the utility is quite simple, so any user will figure it out.

After installation, run the utility.

In the launched window, click on the Create button with a blue icon. After that, the virtual machine creation wizard will appear. In the window of this wizard, enter the settings as shown below.

After entering the settings, we proceed to the next window of the wizard, which will allow us to select the amount of RAM.

At the next stage, we create one hard drive or connect the previously created one. You can connect not only one hard drive to a virtual machine, but several, which expands its capabilities. After creating or connecting a hard drive, a virtual machine will be created. Now let's start the virtual machine with the Start button. In the window that appears, indicate where our ISO image is located.

After selecting the image, we will continue the installation of the operating system. Also, in addition to the image, you can choose a virtual or physical optical drive with the image recorded on the disc. The further installation process will launch the Ubuntu 16.04 installation bootloader. Based on this, further description of the installation process is not necessary, since the entire process is described in the first example.

The only difference will be the installation of the operating system not on the same disk with Windows 10, but on an absolutely clean one, which is a virtual file container. In fact, using this Ubuntu launch option, we use a virtual computer from which we launch the OS on Windows 10. This use case will be especially convenient for those who want to first try out the OS without installing it on a hard drive, and if it is not Like it, remove it without picking the bootloader.

Conclusion

In this article, we looked at how easy it is to install a second Ubuntu 16.04 OS alongside Windows 10. The article also describes the process of creating a bootable USB drive to run on computers without an optical drive. We also covered how to run and install Ubuntu 16.04 in a virtual environment on Windows 10 without installing it on the system at all. Based on the above, after reading this article, you can easily install Ubuntu 16.04 as a second operating system on a Windows 10 computer.

Related videos

Linux can be useful to you for many reasons. For example, your old computer can't be upgraded to new versions of Windows or macOS, or you need Linux-specific apps, or you're just curious to try something new. Or maybe you just bought a new computer without an operating system and want to save money by choosing free Linux.

Installing Linux is easy. Of course, there are distributions like Arch that are quite difficult to install for a beginner. But most modern distributions are very easy to install. Perhaps even easier and faster than Windows.

Before you install Linux on your main computer, back up your important data. When working with partitions on your hard drive, you can inadvertently erase something important. Of course, if you follow the instructions and read carefully what you are doing, then nothing unexpected will happen. But - not superfluous piece in any case.

You can install Linux on computers running Windows and macOS, or on an empty hard drive. You can choose Linux as your primary system, or you can use it side by side with your old system.

1. Download the Linux distribution

First of all, you need to choose a Linux distribution. The DistroWatch.com rating will help you decide.

Then you need to download the selected distribution. It's easy to do this: open the site of the desired distribution, find the download section and choose what suits the bitness of your processor.

As a rule, Linux distributions on official sites are offered to download in two ways. The first way is a normal download. The second is through P2P using a torrent client. The second way is, of course, faster. So choose it if you want to save time.

When the distribution in ISO format is downloaded, you need to burn it to a CD or a regular USB flash drive.

Burning to a CD can be done using standard system tools: Windows Disc Image Burn or macOS Disk Utility. It is enough to click on the downloaded image with the right mouse button and select the appropriate item in the menu.

To write ISO to a USB flash drive, you will need special utilities. For Windows, it's best to choose Rufus, and for macOS, UNetbootin. These programs have a very simple interface, it is quite difficult to get confused in them.

3. Prepare disk partition

This step should be followed if you want to keep your system installed and use Linux at the same time as it. If you decide to transfer your computer to Linux completely or install the OS on an empty hard drive, skip the paragraph.

Windows

Open Windows Disk Management. Select the drive or partition from which you plan to carve some space for your Linux installation. Most distributions will be fine with 10 GB. But if you plan on installing a lot of apps, take more. Right-click on the partition and select Shrink Volume. Enter a size and click OK.

The process can take quite some time, so please be patient.

When Disk Management has finished resizing the partitions, the disk will have empty unallocated space marked in black. This is where we will install Linux.

Later, if you don’t need Linux, you can delete partitions with it and give the freed space back to Windows using the same Disk Management Tool.

macOS

You can allocate a place for installing Linux through the "Disk Utility" macOS. Select your drive and click on the "+" sign to create a partition for Linux. It may take some time to create a new partition.

4. Prepare the bootloader

Windows

This item only applies to new computers that are pre-installed with Windows 10, 8.1, or 8. These computers use a UEFI bootloader that will not allow you to boot to any system other than Windows.

To fix this, go to your computer's BIOS settings and disable the Secure Boot option. Then reboot. Done, you can now download and install other systems alongside your Windows.

macOS

Unlike most computers, a Mac requires a couple of extra steps to install Linux in a dual boot with macOS.

First of all, disable SIP. Restart your Mac and press Cmd + R. The Recovery menu will appear. Select "Terminal" in it and enter csrutil disable .

Restart your Mac again. SIP is disabled.

Manual

Suitable if you want to set the sizes for your partitions yourself or, for example, create a separate partition for your files. To do this, select "Other option" and click "Continue".

Linux will display what partitions you have on your computer. You can delete them, format them, or, conversely, leave the sections with the information you want to keep intact.

To install Linux instead of your system, select the partition with the installed system and delete it with the "-" button. Then create new partitions on the freed space.

• Root partition for Linux system files. Select the Ext4 file system and mount point /.
• A swap partition, or a swap partition, comes in handy if you don't have enough RAM, but a fast SSD drive. In the list of file systems, select Swap Partition.
• The Home section is where your files will be stored. Select an Ext4 file system and a /home mount point.

Click "Continue" and confirm the changes. The installer will erase the partitions you selected and create new ones in the freed space.

How to install Linux next to the current system

There are two ways to install Linux next to your system.

Auto

Most Linux installers detect the systems you have installed right away. If you have not created a separate disk space for Linux, you can try selecting the "Install next to Windows" option. The installer will automatically create the necessary partitions, and you do not have to do anything manually.

Manual

If you want to determine how much space to allocate the system yourself, and followed the instructions in step 3, click "Another option" and click "Continue". You will see your disk partitions and the empty space we prepared for Linux. Create a root partition there (mount point /) as described above. The home partition is not required in this case: you will be able to copy and modify files on your main system.

Click Continue. The installer will leave your files where they are. It will simply create new partitions in the free space. You will be able to choose which system you want to boot at startup.

8. Complete the Linux installation

You will then be asked to introduce yourself. Enter your name and create a password. Don't forget your password, as you will need it at all times to complete tasks on behalf of everyone. Optionally, you can encrypt your home folder.

Then just wait. When the installation completes, you will be prompted to remove the installation disk and reboot. Do not forget to disable booting from external drives in the BIOS if you enabled it.

What to do after installation

When you reboot and your Linux desktop appears in front of you, you will be able to do everything you can on Windows and macOS: surf the web, edit documents, and listen to music. Don't forget to update and look in the "App Store" (or its equivalent, depending on the distribution) to install the applications you need.

Try Linux and you will see that in everyday life it is no more complicated than Windows or macOS.

The transition from Windows to Linux, if the first one has already gained impressive experience, is a serious stress for the human mind. It's like getting to another planet - familiar only in certain surface moments, subject to completely different laws of physics, located at a different stage of evolution. Therefore, Windows users are recommended a “soft” transition to Linux - using special distributions adapted to the Windows interface, or installing Linux as a second operating system on another partition of the computer disk. Below we will consider how to install Linux next to Windows on another disk partition specially allocated for this purpose. And for example, let's take the most popular Linux distribution - Ubuntu.

1. Download Ubuntu and create installation media

It is assumed that any version of Windows is already installed on the computer. You can download the Linux Ubuntu distribution from the site ubuntu.ru. The downloaded distribution must be written to a disk or flash drive, after formatting the latter in FAT32 format. In the Windows environment, programs and can create bootable USB flash drives with Linux distributions, including for BIOS with a UEFI interface. In addition, to create bootable USB flash drives with Linux distributions, there are special utilities that, like the Media Creation Tool for creating bootable media for Windows, can not only burn ISO images, but also download them. These are the Linux Live USB Creator and UNetbootin programs.

2. Working with disk space inside Windows

If your computer already has at least a third disk partition (not counting the System Reserved partition) with a size of 10 GB or more, you can use it to install Ubuntu. All that needs to be done in this case is to free it by moving the files to another non-system partition of the disk.

If there are only two disk partitions, or even only one C partition, you must first work with disk space. We will take the first steps to allocate the disk space of the computer inside Windows, in the standard diskmgmt.msc utility. By entering its name in the "Run" command field, we will access the utility in any version of Windows. And in system versions 8.1 and 10, quick access to the utility is implemented in the menu by pressing the Win + X keys.

In our example, we have a popular disk space layout scheme with two working partitions - system C and non-system D for storing personal files. The letter of the non-system partition may be different - E, F, G, if D is reserved for a drive or removable media. From the non-system partition, you need to take away part of the space for the partition with Ubuntu. We call the context menu on this section and select "Compress Volume".

In the "Size of compressible space" column, set the size allocated for Ubuntu. In our case, this is 15 GB, but if you plan to actively work with Ubuntu, in particular, testing various software, 30-40 GB can be allocated for this system. Click the "Squeeze" box at the bottom.

Returning to the utility window, we will see that 15 GB of space has been cut off from the non-system disk, and this space has not been allocated.

So we will leave this matter, and we will carry out further work on the distribution of space using Ubuntu tools.

If only a system partition for Windows has been created on the hard disk, we first compress the space of drive C using the above method. Then we form a non-system partition from part of the unallocated space by calling the context menu on it, selecting "Create a simple volume" and following the steps of the wizard. And the rest of the space is left unallocated.

Upon completion of all work, we reboot and set the media with Ubuntu in the BIOS priority.

3. Managing Disk Space with Ubuntu LiveDisk Tools

One of the few advantages Linux has over Windows is LiveDisk distributions. It is much more than the Windows Recovery Environment. So, LiveDisk with Ubuntu is almost a complete operating system. Such a system is limited by the inability to apply settings and the low speed of the bootable media, which in emergency cases is unlikely to be of significant importance. Among the standard Ubuntu LiveDisk tools is a utility for working with the biased disk GParted.

When starting LiveDisk, select the Russian language and click "Start Ubuntu".

In its window we will see the same partition structure as in the Windows diskmgmt.msc utility, but in a different interface and with different data designations. Mounted hard drives are displayed in the upper right corner as "/dev/sda", where "dev" is the term "device" (short for device) and "sda" is a specific HDD, SSD, flash drive, or other media. Media is designated with the last letter replaced in alphabetical perspective - "sdb", "sdc", "sdd", etc. Disk partitions are displayed as "/dev/sda1" and are distinguished by the last digit - numerical perspective. In such conditions, it is necessary to focus on the size of disks and partitions.

Ours has unallocated space with a size of 15 GB, it needs to be partitioned for Ubuntu - for the system itself and its swap file. But on computers with a Legacy BIOS (regular BIOS, not UEFI), you first need to create one shared partition - an extended one, a container for forming logical partitions. Three existing partitions - "Reserved by the system", disks C and D - were created during the installation of the system and during the operation of Windows by its regular means. And this means that by default they were assigned the type of main partitions, of which there should be no more than 4 on the disk. Therefore, in order to be able to further create disk partitions, the fourth partition must be created with an extended type, and logical partitions must be formed inside it.

If the partition under Ubuntu is already formed, but it was previously assigned the main type, and this is the last of four such possible ones, the partition must be deleted. In the GParted window on the unallocated space, call the context menu and select "Delete". To create a partition on the unallocated space, select "New" in the context menu.

In the window that appears for creating a new partition, in the "Create as" column, select "Advanced partition". Click "Add".

On the unallocated space, call the context menu again and select "New". Let's create a Linux swap partition first. Even on modern computers with 4 GB or more of RAM, a swap partition is needed to unload data from RAM when hibernating. In the window for creating a new partition, in the "New size" column, specify the size equal to the amount of RAM on the computer. In the "Create as" column, select "Logical partition", and in the "File system" column - "Linux-swap". Click "Add" at the bottom.

On the remaining unallocated space, call the context menu again, select "New" again. In the “New size” column, in our case, we leave all the remaining space for the Ubuntu partition, in the “Create as” column, again, select “Logical partition”, and in the “File system” column we put “ext4”. Click "Add".

All these disk space partitioning operations are only planned so far. They appear at the bottom of the GParted window and can be overridden if necessary. To use them, you need to press the green checkmark button on the panel at the top.

We wait for the completion of the application of operations and close the GParted utility.

4. Installing Ubuntu

Now it remains to install Linux Ubuntu. Click the system installation shortcut on the LiveDisk desktop.

We choose Russian.

In our case, we will refuse to download updates during the installation of the system in order to save time. This can be done later. But check the box for installing third-party software for computer components and ensuring the playback of media content.

In the installation type window, select "Other option".

A window with the partition table will open. Here, first we click on the swap partition and in the mini-window that appears in the “Use as” column, set the value, respectively, to “swap partition”. Click "OK".

Then, in the table, click on the partition prepared for Ubuntu itself, and select the Ext4 Journaled File System value for it. We put a tick below "Format partition", and in the column "Mount point" select the value "/". Click "OK".

After that, click the "Install Now" button.

Choose a region

keyboard layout,

create an Ubuntu account.

We are waiting for the installation to complete.

We restart the computer.

After the reboot, the Grub bootloader menu will appear on the screen, where in the future it will be possible to choose which of the operating systems to start.

Have a great day!

Like all ordinary users, I started my acquaintance with a computer on the Windows operating system. At that time, I did not even suspect that there was something in the world other than Windows.

The computer theme dragged me quite deeply. Time went by on its own, study, work. In my free time, I read various books "a computer for dummies", gained experience and switched to more serious and interesting publications on a computer topic. At some point in my life, I subscribed to Chip magazine, which was 90% dedicated to the Windows operating system.

In one of the issues, the editors made a gift to their subscribers by including the Mandriva PowerPack distribution kit in their DVD, which was included with the magazine. After reading an article with beautiful pictures of various Linux desktop effects, I immediately wanted to have such a miracle on my computer. These images of Gnu/Linux desktop screenshots warmed my heart. It was something new in computer work. And to this day, I always enjoy using my computers with Linux installed.

At that time, of course, I had a question about installing linux and windows on one computer. The problem resolved itself, because Linux, like no other, supports (double or triple) better than anyone else.

How to install linux and windows №1:

First way linux and windows installations is the most simple and true. Perhaps you have decided to completely redo the partition table on your computer, so to speak, start from scratch. Demolish all operating systems and install them again, thinking about where and how much space you will allocate for each.

To do this, we will create a backup copy of important data on another storage medium. Then install Windows, remembering to leave enough HDD space for your favorite Linux distribution.

After the installation of windows is completed, you need to download it. Make sure the new system boots correctly. And after that, we begin to install your favorite Linux distribution.

There are a huge number in the world that have their own almost unrepeatable installers. I will only add links here as I write articles on installing various Linux distributions. My first article on sharing on a computer. After a successful installation of Linux, the first time Grub boots, it will display prompts to select the OS.

How to install linux and windows №2 "Installing linux after windows"

Perhaps you already have Windows pre-installed and you would not want to demolish it, because then you will have to configure the OS for a long time. Then the second method comes to your aid. linux and windows installations.

Of course, it all depends on the Linux you choose. If you install Ubuntu, it already comes with a simple, reliable and clean installer that will help you easily move your Windows partition to make room for the latter.

And then install Ubuntu in a free area.

But what if you have chosen a Linux distribution with an incomprehensible disk editor and are afraid of doing harm. Every time I install a new distribution for myself, I first prepare the hard drive with the tools I know. For this, as someone better suited gparted, which can be either . And easily change, creating the sections you need.

Thus, you will prepare the HDD for system installation in advance. All you have to do is specify the correct mount points for your Linux.

I use this method all the time and without fail. It remains only to add that this disc tool can be used from various distributions in live cd mode. Almost all repositories have gparted, which can be installed and called if the Internet is available. Some versions of Linux have it pre-installed.

Good luck installing Linux and Windows!