Installing Ubuntu along with Windows 8 in UEFI enabled system

I got a Dell Inspiron few days back with Windows 8 installed on it. Its pretty cool but needed a Linux OS along with it so installed Ubuntu 13.04. It was easy setting up a PC on dual boot (Windows and Linux) back when legacy BIOS were in picture. But lately it has been replaced by its successor UEFI (Unified extensible firmware interface) and nowadays Windows 8 machines are coming with UEFI. Because of it, installing any Linux OS along with Windows 8 gives a hard time.

I have prepared a comprehensive guide to install Ubuntu 13.04 alongside Windows 8 on UEFI enabled machines. Of course its all out there ,I have just made a step wise guide for your ease.

Prerequisites: 

• Windows 8 should be pre installed on the machine.
• At-least 10 GB (or more according to the requirement) of space should be unallocated on hard-disk.
• Ubuntu must be 64-bit. (32-bit version is not detected by UEFI)
• Use the last version of Ubuntu  as support for UEFI appeared in 11.10, but has become more reliable in next versions. Support for UEFI SecureBoot appeared in 12.10 and 12.04.2.

Following is the specification of machine and operating system I used:

• Dell Inspiron 15, Intel Core i5, 4GB, 500GB HDD.
• Windows 8 64-bit pre-installed.
• Ubuntu 13.04 64-bit version used.

Following are the steps that were followed by me:

• Enter into Setup of the machine.(Pressing F2 for my machine, may be different for any other machine). Go to the boot menu, screen must be like the one shown below.

• Find the "Secure Boot" option and change it to "Disabled". 

• Now "Exit Saving Changes". Machine will reboot.

• Now press F12 and enter into the "Boot Option". All the boot devices will appear as shown in the below screenshot. Insert the Ubuntu DVD in the DVD-ROM. Select the DVD as boot device.

• Ubuntu disk will be boot up and following screen will show up. Selects "Install Ubuntu"

• Below screen will appear.

• After some time ubuntu will ask you to select the language. After selecting language click "Continue". 

• Following screen will appear containing options for ubuntu installation. Select "Something Else"  option and press "Continue".

• Screen with disk details will appear. Select the "Free Space" and click the "+" sign to create a partition.

• A popup will appear asking details of the partitions. Create the root partition, allocate it ample amount of space (As per the availability but do leave approx. twice the amount of RAM for swap area to be created in the next step). Select the file system as "Ext4" and mount point "/". Click "OK"

• Screen with disk space distribution will appear. Again select the "Free Space" and click the "+" sign to create a partition for swap area. Give it approximately twice the size of RAM and select the option as shown in the screenshot below.

•  The screen with disk space distribution will appear again. Now it must be showing an ext4 partition and swap partition. Linux will get installed in ext4 partition. Now click "Install Now" button to start the installation process.

• Now select the time zone depending on the location. Click "Continue".

• Select the keyboard layout. Click "Continue".

• Create the user and password for it.  Click "Continue".

• Ubuntu will be installed now, it may take several minutes. 

• When the installation is done, it asks to reboot the machine. Reboot it.

• On restarting if it gives option to boot Ubuntu as well as Windows  8 then you are good to go but if only Ubuntu is getting booted, you need to follow below mentioned steps.

•  Boot it into ubuntu and start the terminal. Make sure the machine is connected to internet. Enter following commans in order (This is needed to repair the boot ):

                 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair  

           sudo apt-get update

           sudo apt-get install boot-repair

           boot-repair

• Following popup will appear:

• A popup showing "EFI detected. Please check the options." should appear. Click "OK".

• Next screen gives you option to repair the boot. Click the "Recommended Repair".

• After some time, a pop like the one below should appear asking for rebooting you machine. Click "OK" and restart your machine.

• If all goes well, following GRUB screen should appear providing option to boot Ubuntu as well as Windows 8.

Please note that secure boot is still disabled in the Setup. Even enabling it should not create a problem but when we tried it was not loading any operating system. This is still a bug and in testing phase. I will surely update the post whenever this bug is fixed.

If you have any questions, feel free to comment, I'll  try to help you out. 

Till then take care..!!

10 Cheers to Binary...!!!