[Triumf-linux-users] Anyone done a dual-boot recently (Windows 8) ?

[Andrew Daviel]

I've done several dual-boot systems over the years, mostly with XP on systems 
too old/slow/small to consider a VM (or just so long ago that VMs didn't 
exist). More recently my Dell laptop that came with Vista, where I think I just 
hijacked the oversized recovery partition and installed Fedora 9 - Vista boots 
from GRUB with a chainloader directive.

I got a new HP laptop for a family member a few months ago, which came with 
Windows 8.1. So I went and created a dualboot system the way I've always done 
it - resizentfs and a RedHat install disk.

This was somewhat of a disaster - my first encounter with UEFI, secure boot and 
GPT. Or it would have been a disaster if I hadn't eventually won - nice 
dual-boot using rEFInd.

I'm still wondering :
- how should I have resized the Windows partition so it didn't lose
   critical attributes ?
- how should I have got Linux to install properly with EFI to start with ?

Gory details at http://andrew.daviel.org/dualboot-blog.html

A VANLUG member later pointed me at
http://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/487837-How-to-Dual-boot-%28preinstalled%29-Windows-8-and-Linux-UEFI-etc

I am hoping to write a shorter "HOWTO", rather than the 
existing "HOWnotTO".

-- 
Andrew Daviel, TRIUMF, Canada