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I currently have a windows 10 operating system and the last time I did a dual boot was with windows 7 and Ubuntu 6 so I have been out of the game for a while now. I am in the process of doing a fresh install of windows 10, but I want to install Ubuntu and Arch on the side. I started reading on it and I have been behind the scene for quite awhile now and what used to be a relatively simple process is now quite difficult due to Microsoft using UEFI for windows 8 and 10. Here is what I am trying to work out, boot options for Windows 10, Ubuntu and Arch, I want them to be partitioned on my SSD, I want this to somehow be as simple as possible (having a boot option prompt every time I turn on my computer on what I want to boot into).

I know this is going to be quite difficult for someone to explain so I greatly appreciate any answer that is given. I am wondering since I am doing a clean install of windows if it would just be more beneficial to nuke my hard drive and install Ubuntu first and move to the next to OS's from there, because that user mentioned GRUB and MBR do not play together very well.

Here is a dx diag of my system I built it myself gigabyte motherboard.

Tshilidzi Mudau
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Jacob Knopp
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  • What Gigabyte Board? I have a Gigabyte Z170 in a SFF configuration. I have multiple Ubuntu's, two on SSD & more on HDD are using UEFI and gpt partitioning. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI and: http://askubuntu.com/questions/743095/how-to-prepare-a-disk-on-an-efi-based-pc-for-ubuntu and: http://askubuntu.com/questions/221835/installing-ubuntu-on-a-pre-installed-windows-10-with-uefi If you have Windows fast start up off, and have secure boot off, then you can dual/multi-boot from grub or UEFI boot menu. – oldfred Dec 06 '16 at 04:39
  • My board is a Z97X and it is in UEFI mode, but there is a toggle somewhere in there for legacy. – Jacob Knopp Dec 07 '16 at 02:28
  • Gigabyte Z170 Nvidia 970 16.04 UEFI Settings required
    http://askubuntu.com/questions/792012/nvidia-geforce-gtx970-problem-ubuntu-16-04 and: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2341704 and many Gigabyte need IOMMU settings in UEFI & boot options: Others found UEFI/BIOS update solved issue of 4GB FAT limit. turns out the IOMMU needs to be enabled in the BIOS. Gigabyte Z97-HD3 Intel Z97 Motherboard http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=gigabyte_z97_hd3&num=1 Some Gigabyte boards need acpi=off boot parameter also     – oldfred Dec 07 '16 at 04:36

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The easiest way to install these OS's is to install Windows first, then Ubuntu or Arch. When you install Windows, it will overwrite the bootloader. By installing Windows first, GRUB (the Linux bootloader) will be installed on top of the Windows bootloader. This is usually better because GRUB can choose between Linux and Windows.

As for whether to install Ubuntu or Arch first, it doesn't really matter. Arch Linux is more of a manual installation, so you can just skip installing GRUB when you install Arch and run sudo update-grub under Ubuntu to add Arch to the GRUB menu.

Also, your motherboard seems to be UEFI, and I would recommend using the GPT partition table instead of MBR. Windows 10 might already use GPT on a clean installation. You can read more about GPT, but it's probably better because it doesn't have a 4 partition limit (which may be a problem with 3 OS's) and the 2TB limit.

Evan Chen
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  • Thanks for the help, for some reason I thought the drive had to be in MBR format to install windows. I really need to do some reading on UEFI and GRUB... should I follow what this user is recommending( http://askubuntu.com/questions/666631/how-can-i-dual-boot-windows-10-and-ubuntu-on-a-uefi-hp-notebook ), or should i just go about creating a partition and loading a live USB linux instillation like I planned on from the start? The way the user has things explained in this answer is well a lot, but it seems like the cleanest way to do the instillation without conflict. – Jacob Knopp Dec 07 '16 at 02:25
  • @JacobKnopp I would follow what that user recommends, he provides a fairly comprehensive guide. Just add another ext4 partition for Arch, and it should work – Evan Chen Dec 07 '16 at 03:59