dual boot

How I created a dual boot system on my new (late 2025) PC without any ritual sacrifices

Caveat: Time and a lot of patience were sacrificed, but not in a ritualistic manner.

Early optimism

I got Linux Mint working on my 2019 PC alongside Windows 11 without much fuss a few years ago, each OS on its own SSD. I figured it would be pretty straightforward to do the same on my new PC.

I was wrong.

The fix and its various parts

First, Mint would refuse to even see Windows 11. I fixed this through some major overkill: I installed an entirely different Linux distro that did (in this case, KDE Neon).

Next, after recognizing that Windows 11 existed, Mint would only offer a dual boot option if I partitioned the drive I had Windows 11 on, which I did not want to do. (The next major update of Mint, coming around December 2026, promises to use a more modern installer that will likely address my woes detailed here.)

I did the next best thing, telling Mint to erase the SSD that KDE Neon was on, and then install to that. I’d have my dual boot system, woo.

Except Mint did this and never set up the Grub dual boot config at all. It would only boot into Mint unless I mashed F8 at startup and then chose the SSD with Windows.

I fixed this by using a Windows program called Grub2Win, which adds an absolutely hideous graphical UI (seriously, it looks like a CGA monitor threw up on it) to the Grub boot menu. I added Mint as the second boot-up option, pointing to its correct location on its SSD.

Everything now works as intended.

A list but please, don’t try this at home

So, in order:

  1. Install an unrelated Linux distro, like KDE Neon, on a secondary SSD, leaving Windows 11 as is on the primary SSD.
  2. Use the “Erase partition/disk” option in the Linux Mint installer to replace the above distro.
  3. Use a 3rd party program (in my case, Grub2Win, though others would presumably work) to add Linux Mint to the boot menu.
  4. Vow to never do this again. (I’ll probably do it again.)

Easy!

I’m sure I missed twirling a few virtual knobs to make the process easier, but in the end, much like Grade 8 Algebra, I finally got to the solution no matter how painful it was to get there.