How to Install Fedora 27 Alongside With Windows 10 or 8 in Dual-Boot

This tutorial will guide you on how to install Fedora 27 Workstation in dual boot with Microsoft Windows 10 Operating System pre-installed on a BIOS firmware machine.

If your computer has no pre-installed operating system and you plan to install Fedora Linux in dual-boot with a Microsoft operating system, you should first install Windows on your machine before installing Fedora Linux.

However, try to disable Fast Boot and Secure Boot options in UEFI firmware based machines if you plan to install Fedora in dual boot with Windows.

Also, if Windows installation was performed in UEFI mode (not in Legacy Mode or CSM – Compatibility Support Module), Fedora installation should also be performed in UEFI mode.

The installation procedure of Fedora Linux alongside a Microsoft Windows 10 OS requires no special configurations to be made in BIOS based motherboards, except maybe changing the BIOS boot order.

Requirements

1. Download Fedora 27 Workstation ISO Image

Install Fedora 27 with Windows Dual-Boot

1. On the first step, download Fedora DVD ISO image and burn it to a DVD disk or create a bootable USB flash drive using Fedora Media Writer tool or other utility.

To create a bootable Fedora USB drive compatible with installation performed in UEFI mode, use Rufus utility. Place Fedora bootable media into your machine appropriate drive, restart the machine and instruct the BIOS or UEFI firmware to boot from DVD/USB bootable media.

2. On the first installation screen, select Install Fedora Workstation Live 27 and press [enter] key to continue.

3. After the installer loads Fedora Live system, click on Install to Hard Drive option in order to start the installation process.

4. On the next screen, select the language that will be used during the installation process and hit on Continue button.

5. The next screen will present you Fedora Installation Summary menu. First, click on Keyboard menu, choose your system keyboard layout and hit on top Done button to complete this step and go back to main menu, as illustrated in the below images.

6. Next, hit on Time and Date menu and select your region and city from the provided map. When you finish, hit on Done button to return to main installer menu.

7. On the next step, open Network & Hostname menu, write your system hostname and hit Apply button to change the name of your machine. Finally, hit on top Done button to complete this step and go back to main menu.

8. Next, click on Installation Destination menu, check your machine hard disk and select Advanced Custom (Blivet-GUI) option to configure the storage. Again, hit on Done button to enter Blivet GUI Partitioning program.

9. In this step, select the disk partition you want to resize in order to create a new partition that will be used for installing Fedora 27 in dual-boot with Windows 10.

To resize the partition, right-click on the desired partition and select Edit -> Resize from the menu.

10. On the new screen prompt, use the value bar to shrink the Windows partition to your own desired size and click on Resize button to apply changes.

11. The free space resulted after shrinking the Windows partition will be used for installing Fedora Workstation. Select the free space and hit on the + button to create a new partition.

12. On partition settings window, enter the size of the partition, select a file system type, such as the robust ext4 file system to format the partition, add a label for this partition and use /(root) as the mount point of this partition.

When you finish hit OK button to apply the new configuration. Use the same procedure to create the swap partition or other partitions for your system. In this tutorial we’ll create and install Fedora on a single partition mounted in /(root) tree and we’ll configure no swap space.

13. After you’ve created the partitions, review partition table and press the top Done button twice to confirm configuration and hit on Accept Changes button from the pop-up Summary of Changes window to apply storage partition configurations and return to main menu.

14. To start the installation process, just hit on Begin Installation button, as illustrated in the following image.

15. After the installation process starts, click on Root Password menu from User settings window and setup a strong password for your system root account. When you finish, hit the Done button to apply root password and return to initial screen.

16. Next, click on User Creation menu, add the name of a new user and setup a strong password for the new account. To allow root privileges to this user, make sure you check Make this user administrator. Also, check the box with Require a password to use this account and hit on Done button to complete this step.

17. Wait for the installation process to finish and hit on Quit button to complete the installation and close the window.

18. After the installation completes, eject Fedora installation media and reboot the machine. After reboot, you will be directed to GRUB menu, where for 5 seconds you can choose what operating system you want the machine to boot from: Fedora or Windows.

Sometimes, in cases of dual booting Linux-Windows in UEFI firmware machines, the GRUB menu is not always displayed after reboot. If that’s your case, boot the machine into Windows 10, open a Command prompt with elevated privileges and execute the following command in order to restore the GRUB menu.

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\fedora\shim.efi

19. Log in to Fedora Desktop with the admin account created during the installation process and complete gnome-initial-setup wizard which will configure your system language, keyboard layout, privacy and online accounts. Also, open a Terminal console and update fedora system by issuing the below command.

$ sudo dnf update

20. In case you want to access a Windows partition under Linux, open Disks utility, select the Windows NTFS partition and hit on mount button (the button with a triangle sign).

21. To browse the mounted Microsoft Windows partition, open Files -> Other Locations and double-click on NTFS partition Volume to open the NTFS partition.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully installed the latest version of Fedora 27 Workstation in dual-boot with Windows 10. Reboot the machine and select Windows from GRUB menu in order to switch the operating system back to Windows 10.