Ubuntu – Dual boot Surface Pro with Ubuntu

dual-bootgrub2system-installation

How could I setup a dual boot for Ubuntu and Windows 8 on my Microsoft Surface Pro with 128 GB.

Note: My dual boot solution is below.

Best Answer

Video Demo

EDIT: July 11, 2014 @ 6:00PM PST

This has been updated to reflect changes in 14.10 AMD64. (14.04 LTS works fine but 14.10 works awesome out of the box.)

  • Removed boot repair process. ( This seems to be fine in this release. If you have issues you may want to make sure Grub2 is installed and to run the boot-repair process.)

  • Added bootloader section, again. (Note: Someone fixed the bootloader issue that was causing customized loaders not to work for GRUB2.)

First

Create a partitioned drive.

  • Press search button on your keyboard type 'boot'.
  • Select 'settings >> Create and format disk partitions'

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  • Select C drive, right click and select 'shrink volume'.
  • This is your choice but I use appox. 29.3 Gigs(30,000 MB): Shrink respectively.

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Second

Follow the instructions on Geek.com.

  • DO NOT CONNECT TO INTERNET FOR INSTALL!
  • Stop at prompt to delete disk or partition.

  • Return and follow instructions.

    note: I suggest using your SD drive as there seems to be USB compatibility issues in some cases. Also you can simply mount the ISO in Windows and copy the contents to the storage drive, SD or flash.

Third

Prepare partitioned space for install.

  • Change the selection from 'Delete and Install' to 'Something Else' at the bottom.

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  • It will ask if you want to unmount your installation device. Select 'No'.
  • Now select the free space and press the '+' button under the partitions.
  • Select from the drop list 'swap' and select the 'logical' radio button and 'insert at beginning' and finish. Select anywhere from 400 to 600 MB to be safe at least.

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  • Now select the free space and press the 'change' button - again.
  • Select from the drop list 'Ext4' and select the 'primary' radio button, 'insert at beginning', 'format' button checked and '/' as root and finish. Use the remaining space you have reserved.

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  • Finish install process on the Ext4 partition you created.

Now you can restart.

Fourth

The Intel cpu needs a fan sensor update. I suggest doing this with lm-sensors.

sudo apt-get install lm-sensors
sudo sensors-detect
  • Select 'YES' to everything and follow the end instruct
  • It will ask you to run some sudo commands after it is done.

Fifth

Not required but if you have made it this far you want a awesome beautiful device. That ugly boot loader didn't do it for me so I created a boot loader just for the surface.

  • Go Download from my github.
  • Follow README instructions to setup.

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