#How to install linux mint on windows 10 how to
#How to install linux mint on windows 10 Pc

#How to install linux mint on windows 10 how to

Read our guide on partitioning to see how to partition your hard drive in Windows 10. We recommend that you create the space for the partition but leave the space “Unallocated”, as this will simplify the process later and significantly reduce the chance of accidental data loss. You will need to partition your main hard drive to dual-boot Linux. If that’s what you want, look for a guide for your specific version of Linux instead. If you’re planning to install Windows from Linux the set-up process will be similar, but the exact methods for things, such as installation wizards, will be different – they will also depend on which type of Linux OS you are running. This guide will assume you already have Windows installed and are intending to dual boot Linux.

The only requirement is to have enough free hard drive space to install the other system. Dual-booting won’t slow down your computer at all either, as no extra system resources are used by the OS you’re not actively using. You’ll need to restart and boot into the other one to switch. You can still use both, although not at the same time. For all intents and purposes, to the user of a computer a partition is a separate hard drive – one physical hard drive shows up as two lettered drives within the computer.ĭual-booting provides you with all the benefits of both operating systems, without any data loss. Tip: Partitioning is a way to instruct the computer to treat a single physical hard drive as if it were separated into multiple smaller hard drives.

#How to install linux mint on windows 10 Pc

If your PC is set up to dual boot, each time you boot up your computer you can choose which operating system to boot into. This works by creating a second partition on your main hard drive and installing the second operating system there. Dual-booting is where you install two operating systems on one computer. Furthermore, all changes to a Live USB are lost when the computer is turned off, meaning you can’t save any data or documents easily. You could install Linux as a “Live USB”, however, running a Live USB is slow, as USB sticks are not as fast as hard drives. This allows you to run Linux inside of Windows as if it were any other software, but it isn’t ideal on older computers, as both Windows and Linux will need system resources like RAM, which may be in short supply. You could install Linux in a virtual machine. There are a number of ways you can try out Linux, if you’re not ready to get rid of Windows completely, or need both.