Re: Modern Dual-Boot Setup Prcoedure (Dell XPS)

[George N. White III]

On Sat, Dec 2, 2023 at 4:48 PM Tim Evans <tkevans(a)tkevans.com&gt; wrote:

>  Brand New Dell XPS 15 coming tomorrow, to replace my venerable
> Lenovo
>  T530.  (Looking forward to something a little lighter to lug around.)
>
>  It's been 10 years since I set the T530 up to dual-boot Fedora and Windows.
>
>  I'm sure I can figure out how to reduce the size of the Windows
>  partition to make space for Fedora, but am unsure of the process for
>  current PC BIOS and grub setup for dual boot. Or is the Fedora installer
>  smart enough to handle it for me?
>
>  Are there docs for this?  Thanks.
>  
You should check the LHWDB <https://linux-hardware.org> for issues
encountered by
linux users (sometimes there are comments suggesting workarounds.

You should use Windows tools to 1) update device firmware and 2) create
"free space"
for linux.  Dell has the "SupportAssist" app you should run immediately to
update
firmware and verify that everything works properly.   On my Dell I need to
use F2 to
get to the "BIOS" configuration, and "F12" to get a list of boot
options.
The problem is
that the system starts faster than my monitor (using DP to HDMI adapter
cable) wakes
up so on cold boot I have to guess about the timing to hit a function key.
I usually end
up in Windows a couple times before I get into the BIOS screen I want.

The Windows tools have changed with recent updates to Windows 11
as I discovered when installing F39 on a Dell desktop.  I just converted
an existing linux partition to free space so didn't need to shrink the
Windows
partition.  A common mistake is allowing Windows assign a drive letter to
the free space -- the Fedora installer looks for "free space".

-- 
George N. White III