Multi-Boot Clear Linux OS

Documentation at URL:https://clearlinux.org/documentation/clear-linux/tutorials/multi-boot
refer to Process overview Point#2 which state,

" Install the next operating system without creating its own EFI partition."
Anyone here to guide how to?

Poiint#3 states. “Boot into the newly installed OS” which one considers as newly install?
Clear Linux or windows?

Though I don’t know how to instruct the Windows installer which partition should be re-used as ESP, I am sure you could do this for Ubuntu by selecting “Something else” in the Installation type menu [1] during the installation. FYI.

[1] https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-ubuntu-18-04-bionic-beaver#h5-5-install-ubuntu

What i am looking for is completely different than your referred. Question is, Once I installed ClearLinux and then when I select Windows installtion media How can I prevent Windows intaller creating EFI partition.

when you already have an EFI partition windows will not create new one but will overwrite on existing one. you need to recover the clear linux boot menu from live disk and add time out.

Simple summary:
If you have windows already you need to remove, boot into clear linux live disk and open gparted and delete old EFI partition.

  1. Install clear linux
  2. Install windows
  3. Boot into clear linux and recover boot menu
  4. Add boot menu timeout and update boot
  5. Restart
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If you have and want to use Windows already why would you remove it? Do you mean remove the EFI partition only or the entire Windows OS? Recovering GRUB is not particularly easy, and I have no idea how the WIndows boot manager works as I never use Windows. I’m actually afraid of it, and what it might do to screw up my computer. Almost every time you get involved with it, it turns into a mess. I’m thinking if these computers were designed properly there would be a boot partition with a boot manager that could not be touched by any OS. Booting would be configured from the BIOS manager, and you would never loose your ability to boot if you already had an installed OS. Only the BIOS could make the decision. Basically it should look for all installed OS’s and stop and ask which you want to boot if it’s not configured to boot automatically into a specific OS.

I would suggest you to installing Clear Linux first and reinstall windows OS itself as a safest option, but if you don’t want to re install windows then you will have to choose between operating system by entering to boot menu(F9 in HP PC) during every boot.
Another experimental solution if you don’t want to reinstall windows and installed Clear Linux later, is to

  1. Create windows installation media and Clear Linux installation media
  2. Enter into Clear Linux
  3. Open gparted
  4. Delete EFI partition created by windows
  5. Boot Windows installation media, enter repair this pc
  6. Enter the command prompt and recover efi bootloader selecting efi partition created by Clear Linux
  7. After successful windows bootloader recovery enter Clear Linux Live disk and recover boot menu
  8. Add boot menu timeout and update boot
  9. Restart
    Try the experimental solution at your own risk. I will not guarantee it to work on all PC.

I haven’t been able to get the timeout to work - it jumps straight into the boot sequence. I have to hit F9 and use the UEFI selector to pick Clear Linux or Windows. Did I miss a step? clr-boot-manager says the timeout was set.

I think you have installed clear Linux after installing windows. Dual boot menu appears only if clear Linux is installed first and windows is installed later. Another reason that you might face issue is multiple EFI partition. boot into clear Linux and in gparted check how many EFI partition are in your system. there should be only one EFI partition.

You have absolutely convinced me that attempting to use Windows in conjunction with a Linux system is more trouble than it’s worth.

Check what BootOrder do you have using efibootmgr.

A very simple Linux installation which respects your windows installation is Linux Mint (Cinnamon edition). I cannot understand why Clear Linux’s installation for multi-boot systems is so tricky and uncertain.

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I generally don’t use a Windows drive. When I buy a new computer, I just take the Windows drive out and purchase a clean drive. I do this in case I want to return the computer to the store. The entire Windows domination of the market has been perhaps a two decades long nightmare, Therefore here’s how I believe computers should have been built long ago and probably would have been if it wasn’t for the Micro$oft monopoly.

The OS should have been on SD cards. If you want to change the OS just insert a different SD. The BIOS would just boot whatever SD was inserted at the time. Your personal data would then be the only thing on the HD. Basically that’s the way my computer is now. I have my OS on the SSD card drive, and all my data on a 1 TB SS SATA drive. I have no Windows OS installed, and very rarely have any call for it. As I pointed out it has mostly been a very long term and costly annoyance in my life.

My modus operandi since Y2K (Windows Millenium Edition) has been:

  1. Buy an inexpensive Windows laptop - the most CPU and RAM for the least amount of money.
  2. Upgrade Windows to the “Pro” version - for example, Windows ME → Windows 2000.
  3. Dual-boot it with Linux.
  4. Do cool stuff in Linux and boot into Windows once a week to catch up on updates. :wink:

There are still some things that don’t work at all on Linux or work unacceptably under Wine. For those things, I have Windows Pro.

Whatever floats your boat. I have no real call for Windows, and I do a lot of creative work in just Linux. I’m more interested in where Samsung’s DEX is going.

Exactly. I triple boot on 3 computers, all have Win 10, Mint 19.1 and Salient (Arch based), all 3 computers have each OS on separate SSDs. No issues at all booting into whichever one I want to use.

Installed Clear Linux on my laptop (one of the 3 triple boot computers) on it’s own SSD. It changed the boot order to make itself the default booting OS and somehow modified the SSD Salient was on so half the partition was now unallocated space.

My opinion is if Intel seriously wants users of all experience levels to try Clear Linux, it really needs to be way more multi-boot friendly. No one is going to wipe out whatever OS they happen to be using to TRY to install Clear (cause it doesn’t always even load the live CD) first then reinstall their other OS AND programs. Especially Linux users who have come to expect multi-boot to be normal.

sam

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Agreed. It is easy to multi-boot in other linux platform and don’t know why multi-boot in clear linux is tricky.

$ efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 000F
Timeout: 10 seconds
BootOrder: 0010,000F,0001,0007,0005,0002,0006,000E,000C,000D,000B,0009,000A,0008,0000,0004,0003,0017,9999
Boot0000* ubuntu
Boot0001* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0002* ArcoLinux
Boot0003* antergos
Boot0004* ArchLabs
Boot0005* Linux bootloader
Boot0006* Fedora
Boot0007* ArcoLinuxD
Boot0008* antergos_grub
Boot0009* Linux bootloader
Boot000A* Linux bootloader
Boot000B* Linux bootloader
Boot000C* Linux bootloader
Boot000D* Linux bootloader
Boot000E* Linux bootloader
Boot000F* Linux Boot Manager
Boot0010* Linux bootloader
Boot0017* Solid State Disk
Boot9999* USB Drive (UEFI)

Now what do I do? The help file just tells me what the options are? And by the way, none of that stuff except Windows and the current Clear install is on the machine. How do I tell which one is which? And how do I clean out all the garbage entries?

There are good examples in man efibootmgr and is worth the read.

TL;DR of it is efibootmgr -v will show more information about the disk/partition/file. efibootmgr -b #### -B to delete an entry where #### is the hex index.

Well, it’s pretty obvious I can delete the Ubuntu and ArcoLinux ones. But there are a whole bunch of entries and only two bootable systems on the machine - Windows and Clear. What happens if I accidentally delete the Clear one?

There needs to be a higher-level tool for this. TL;DR - the multi-boot user experience needs some work if a 20-year Linux veteran can’t make a dual-boot do what he wants it to do. :wink:

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