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How to setup a Windows 10, Linux Mint 19.1 Dual Boot with Encrypted Partitions on a Dell XPS 15 9560

Revision as of 08:18, 15 May 2019 by Sean (talk | contribs) (Created page with "This is a how to on setting up a system that dual boots [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 Windows 10] and [https://linuxmint.com/release.php?id=34 L...")

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Revision as of 08:18, 15 May 2019 by Sean (talk | contribs) (Created page with "This is a how to on setting up a system that dual boots [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 Windows 10] and [https://linuxmint.com/release.php?id=34 L...")

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This is a how to on setting up a system that dual boots Windows 10 and Linux Mint 19.1 where both the Windows and Linux partitions are encrypted. This guide expects UEFI to be turned on but SecureBoot to be turned off. This guide is targeting a Dell XPS 15 9560 laptop and so a couple of the steps are specific to that. However it should be useful for other versions of Linux and other computer models. Note that I don't go into great detail on actually executing the mint-encrypted-install script (I forgot to take notes on that part) but it was fairly straight forward (just make sure you follow the instructions).

Goal

Prerequisites

  • UEFIis turned on
  • SecureBootis turned off
  • You have a Windows 10 Installation CD/DVD/Thumbdrive available
  • You have a Linux Mint 19.1 Live Boot CD/DVD/Thumbdrive available
  • Your BIOS (really UEFI) configuration is set to allow booting from a CD/DVD and/or USB

Instructions

  1. Boot to your Windows 10 Installation Media (hit F12 when the Dell Logo shows during boot to get a Boot Menu on the Dell XPS 15 9560)
  2. Click through the first menus until you get to the Partition screen. At this point delete all partitions.
  3. Now you need to do some custom work so hit Ctrl+F10 and then you'll get to a command prompt
    1. run diskpart
    2. type list disk
    3. type select disk 0 (if you are on a different machine it is possible you'd want to install to a disk other than 0)
    4. type create partition efi size=1024
    5. type create partition msr size=16
    6. type create partition primary size=450000 (this creates a 450GB partition for Windows. You can make this bigger or smaller as you please. The rest of the space will be used for Linux
    7. type exit
    8. type exit
  4. Complete the Windows 10 installation normally
  5. Once you've booted into Windows enable BitLocker encryption of the Windows partition
    1. Go to Control Panel --> System and Security --> BitLocker Drive Encryption
    2. Click Turn on BitLocker for the Operating system drive
    3. Follow the instructions and save your recovery key
  6. Install Linux Mint 19.1
    1. Reboot your machine with the Linux Mint 19.1 Installation Media inserted
    2. hit F12 when the Dell Logo shows during boot to get a Boot Menu on the Dell XPS 15 9560 & select the CD/DVD or USB as needed
    3. When you get to the GRUB bootloader screen hit e to edit the Grub line for the Linux Mint 19.1 Live desktop
      • This is necessary because, currently, the default GPU driver include in the Live Desktop causes Linux to crash on the Dell 9560 and the system won't boot
      1. replace "quiet splash" with "nomodeset" at the end of the line
      2. hit F10 to boot
    4. Once you're in the Live desktop environment open a terminal to download and run CallumCameron's mint-encrypted-install script
      1. open a terminal
      2. run sudo apt-get -y install git
      3. run git clone https://github.com/callumcameron/mint-encrypted-install
      4. run cd mint-encrypted-install
      5. run ./mint-encrypted-install
      6. follow the onscreen prompts exactly
      7. When you are given the choice, I recommend choosing to install 3rd party drivers (but this is your choice)
    5. Reboot the system and you should be prompted to enter the encryption password you selected in Linux
    6. Once you see the GRUB bootloader choose Linux Mint 19.1
    7. Login, click, the Linux Mint icon in the lower left to bring up the Start Menu, type "Driver Manager", and run that program
      • Even though I chose to install 3rd party drivers, the open source nouveau GPU drivers were still selected
      1. Click the "nvidia-driver-XXX" radio button to choose to use the proprietary nvidia drivers instead of the open source nouveau drivers (you can switch back and forth any time)

At this point you should be setup with a system that requires the "Linux" password on boot, then takes you to GRUB where you can choose to boot into Linux or Windows. Linux was decrypted when you entered the password. Windows will be decrypted automatically with BitLocker.

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Last edited on 11 July 2019, at 16:02