Installing xubuntu on a new WIndows-8 system

[Tom H]

On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 4:19 PM, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 1:09 PM, Joep L. Blom <jlblom at neuroweave.nl> wrote:
>>
>> I just bought a new system (Acer) which of course I couldn't buy without an
>> OS so Windows8 is pre-installed. It uses several partitiona and First I
>> thought of removing it completely. However, I've paid for it so first let it
>> be (by the way it is completely unusable for somebody who has used
>> UNIX/Linux over the past 25 years).
>> Now I have shrunk one Windows partition to 250 GB to install Ubuntu on.
>> However, when I start installing the first thing that's asked is a device
>> for the boot loader installation. I give /dev/sda6 (which is the partition I
>> would use for Ubuntu) but it complains that it is used for mount point /
>> (natural) and it want a separate partition for the bootloader code which
>> should be marked as a "Reserved BIOS boot area".
>> I assume it will need an area for the grub loader in the boot-area but there
>> is of course already the WIndows boot code.
>> As extra information: I install in legacy mode as UEFI is too new for me.
>
> Late reply but trying to catch up with personal email today...
>
> (OT: Win 8 is confusing for Windows users too. I hope for MS's sake
> that they switch to an all-Metro interface because the mix of old and
> new interfaces is schizophrenic)
>
> I'll reverse-answer your post!
>
> Were you able to switch to legacy mode without re-installing Windows?
>
> With UEFI, there's no boot-area area for boot loader code. UEFI
> includes a boot manager (manager not loader) that'll point to an
> OS-specific boot manager or boot loader in the EFI system partition.
>
> For Windows, it'll be "<drive>:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi"
> (although I've seen at least one manufacturer use its own at
> "<drive>:\EFI\<manufaturer>\Boot\<boot_manager>.efi").
>
> For Linux, it's mounted at "/boot/efi" and the path is
> "/boot/efi/EFI/<distribution>/<something>.efi".
>
> <EFI SYSTEM PARTITION>/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi

Pressed send by mistake...

The last line is the default location that UEFI tries.

The Ubuntu default with secure boot disabled is
"/boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi".

You can use efibootmgr to list, create, and delete UEFI entries.

You don't need a "Reserved BIOS boot area" if you're using UEFI. But
you do need one if you're using BIOS (or legacy on UEFI) and a
gpt-labelled disk.