Installing Gentoo with Windows

R3SIS7ANC3 · n00b Joined: 05 Sep 2012 Posts: 2

okay i want to install Gentoo on a laptop that currently has Window's 7, now how do i go about doing so. the logical way (i think) to go about this would be, to clear big chunk of space of HDD and then go about installing Gentoo on that UN-partitioned Chunk i clear on HDD...
i am uncertain on how to go about doing the installation so any suggestion's would be great.
i am new to Gentoo and i want to learn GNU/Linux the right way, with a great source based distro like gentoo.
also i read that installing Gentoo and Window's on same HDD is not a good idea, why is that?...
Thank you for your time and Responses!

PS
i know Gentoo is not simple and easy to install, and that is why i chose it

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eccerr0r · Advocate Joined: 01 Jul 2004 Posts: 2998 Location: USA

I don't know where you got the idea it's a bad idea to share a hard drive with two OS, it's just that you have to be careful not to blow away the wrong partitions.
One thing I did notice is that if you have a laptop using Intel Smart Response (the caching) you have to disable it. I'm not sure if there will be a driver that will share the cache with Windows, it seems like it should be possible...

One thing I was doing that wasn't quite the same is to just run Virtualbox and install it in a virtual machine... That's what I was doing before I decided to bite the bullet and disable caching...
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DONAHUE · Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 6:07 am Post subject:

shrink the win7 partition using win7. boot a linux livecd. create gentoo partitions in the empty space. install gentoo. install grub to the gentoo root partition's boot record. not to the disk MBR. Then use the EasyBCD(http://neosmart.net) to edit the windows bootloader to add gentoo to the boot menu.
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cwr · Veteran Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 1462

You don't need EasyBCD, though it might be handy.
I generally boot to the Grub menu as DONAHUE advises
to avoid messing up a laptop's MBR - they tend to
have special code for eg: reloading the OS.

On Vista, at least, this works:

Install Gentoo and grub to a partition, and use
dd if=/dev/sdXX of=linux.bin bs=512 count=1
to get the first 512 bytes of the partition.
Copy this file to the Windows C: drive
eg: via a usb stick, and then boot Windows
and set up a menu using bcdedit.

# Windows BCEdit usage.
The /create argument displays the partition {ID},
then the following commands create a menu:

bcdedit /create /d "Grub" /application BOOTSECTOR
bcdedit /set {ID} device partition=c:
bcdedit /set {ID} path \linux.bin
bcdedit /displayorder {ID} /addfirst
bcdedit /default {ID}
bcdedit /timeout 10

Entering the {ID} the first time is tedious, but
after that you can use up-arrow and edit the command.

To delete the menu entry use:
bcdedit /delete {ID}

Will

Fitzcarraldo · Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:58 pm Post subject:

I use the method outlined by DONAHUE. I wrote a 'how to' a couple of years ago, which explains it in more detail: The best way to dual boot Linux and Windows.

(Note that EasyBCD only works if your machine uses the traditional PC BIOS; it has not yet been modified to work with the new machines using the UEFI.)
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