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I would like to install pop!_os (basically a reskin of Ubuntu with some convenience features added) alongside windows 10. So far, I have installed windows 10, using about half the space on my ssd and leaving the rest unallocated, to be used by pop!_os.

If I remember correctly, the installation dialog of Ubuntu had some preconfigured option "install ubuntu alongside windows". Unfortunately, the pop!_os installation doesn't offer this. They do have an official guide on how to properly format partitions for installation: https://pop.system76.com/docs/dual-booting-windows/

The guide says to:

  • shrink the existing partition to make room for pop!_os (done)
  • create a small 512mb partition for EFI, a big one for / and one at the end of the unused space, for swap.
  • tell the installer how they should be used and continue with the installation

At this point I'm confused. My partitions look like this: partition layout

The OEM Partition is not mentioned in the guide, but the guide does say that EFI should be at the beginning of the drive. Should I remove the OEM partition? Also, according to the pop!_os guide, EFI should be 512mb. Here it is just 100mb.

How should I proceed with the installation?

I was about to just allocate the unused space for root and swap and tell pop!_os to use the existing EFI as EFI. But to avoid losing the time invested in setting up windows, I thought I would ask here first.

UPDATE:

I tried to proceed with the installation by creating root and swap in the unused space and telling the installer to use the existing EFI as EFI. Unfortunately it complains that the partition is not big enough:

EFI too small

At this point it seems as if I have to resize the EFI partition, is that correct? I seem to remember reading somewhere that it should also be possible to just create a second EFI and use the startup boot menu to select the one you want to boot from.

Also, I read online that EFI needs to be extended at its back, which means shrinking the following partition. This shouldn't be a problem in my case, since the Windows installation is followed by unused space. Should I just move the windows partition backwards and try to extend EFI?

lhk
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3 Answers3

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EFI should be at the beginning of the drive

Wrong. EFI is identified by its partition ID and not by its placement.

Should I remove the OEM partition?

No, since it can be used for reinstalling the original Windows 10 in case of catastrophic error.

according to the pop!_os guide, EFI should be 512mb. Here it is just 100mb.

If 100 MB works for you, then leave the EFI partition as it is. If any installation or upgrade will require more than that, it will automatically allocate a new and larger EFI partition (or fail - but I haven't seen this case yet).

harrymc
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That's a standard GPT partition layout for modern Windows installations.

  • The "OEM Partition" is recovery partition for Windows 10. Don't touch it, the recovery system is very fragile and seemingly harmless operations can "unregister" the recovery partition. It's often possible to fix it with reagentc command, but you don't want to go there.
  • The second one is EFI System Partition, or ESP for short, it's where motherboard's firmware looks for OS loaders.

Unfortunately this layout is not perfect for Pop_OS. Unlike Ubuntu, on UEFI systems it doesn't use GRUB, but systemd-boot, which uses more disk space on the ESP (systemd-boot boots using kernel's EFI stub, so the kernel must be copied to ESP alongside boot systemd-boot loader). That's why the Pop_OS installer won't let you install unless your ESP has at least 500 MB (or 512 MB?) of total capacity.

There are two approaches to this situation:

  1. Move the Windows partition right and resize the ESP
  2. Create a second ESP.

Option #2 is technically a valid and easier solution, but Windows will be fussy about it if you ever try to reinstall or reset it. You'll only get unhelpful error messages. Upgrades can break too.

Option #1 will take some time, entire filesystem will be shifted right byte by byte. You won't be able to pull this off with Windows running, but Pop_OS's installation media is perfectly capable of doing this as it comes with GParted (available under the "advanced partitioning" button). If you decide to go this route, make sure to make backups first - every now and then GParted will crash when moving partitions, it's rare, but it happens. Clonezilla is a user-friendly way to backup entire partition, you can install it in Pop_OS's demo mode after enabling proprietary software sources (enabled by default in the NVIDIA flavor).

gronostaj
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The OEM partition and C: are both windows partitions. Pop_OS doesnt care about either of these, so leave them alone.

to install this linux distro, you only need 2 partitions (4 total in your setup - 1:OEM 2:EFI 3:WINDOWS 4:Linux).

open pop_os installer, choose to partition manually, then click a partition and then the edit button.

the first partition required will be built like this:

Filesystem:Fat32

Size:600MiB

Use as:Boot/EFI

Flags:Boot

do not forget to toggle the box that says boot! - located in flags section

the second partition required will be built like this:

Filesystem:ext4

Size: However big you want linux to be

Use as:Root /

Flags:None

Swap Partition is not required and can be ignored. swap can also be setup as a file on an existing partition after linux is installed as well, but again not necessary.

Now remember to leave the oem partition and the C:\ partition alone otherwise you will delete windows with no option to recover from the oem partition, your only option at that point would be to Download a windows installer similar to the one your using for pop_os, install it, then find all the drivers needed for your hardware since they wont be there like they would in the oem partition.

The EFI partitions purpose is for booting only. similar to the keys of your car, the EFI partition would be the ignition device that starts the car.

Edit: I meant this to be a step by step guide so i changed it into one, follow this and your desired setup will be complete and work.

Radical Edward
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