Installing xubuntu on a new WIndows-8 system

[Joep L. Blom]

On 18/08/13 16:39, Tom H wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 4:19 PM, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:

>> 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.

Tom, Very late reaction but I just got back from holiday (2 days ago) 
and had to attack a frenzy of activities besides trying to catch up with 
my mail and I have still a lot to go. I had thought to use my laptop on 
holidays to reply but, not having installed Xubuntu on it (yet) I 
couldn't get my VPN connection to work with W8, which, I didn't think it 
possible, is much more of a nightmare than the new Ubuntu dashboard or 
how they call the UI. Literally everything is hidden behind
nonsense names (e.g. directories are Libraries(??) and command-line 
actions are still DOS and a manual is nowhere to find. Moreover I didn't 
have Internet (no wifi around) and using a telephone dongle was 
prohibitively expensive.
But thanks for the explanation. I have to study it carefully and will 
let you know how I proceed. I want - for the moment - keep the W8 as, 
hey, I've paid for it(!) and it is not completely useless (I hope).
I'll keep you and Colin informed to discover the best way of having the 
best of both worlds.
Joep