Hi, I am using Slackware64 14.2 since last few months. I loved it. I want to install the same on my AMD A10-7870K desktop. However, I would like to have Windows10(office usage), Ubuntu(kids) along with Slackware.


- I had Windows10 already on system. Then installed Slackware without any bootloader. During installation, installer asked to create small UEFI partition, I created it. Then, installed UBUNTU with its bootloader(I had created two different SWAP partitions for Slackware and Ubuntu).
- However, post installation - boot menu did not show Windows10. Checked Slackware, it worked fine.
- Ubuntu worked once, then for second login, it started showing garbage screen(login prompt was like distorted graphics).
- Then, I deleted UEFI partition. Boot menu started showing Windows 10 but couldn't boot into it due to missing something.

This is not actually Slackware issue. But, your suggestions on this would be helpful. How to get back all three running again? What is best way to install system with these OS?

Hi,

First, you don't need two distinct swap partitions. One is enough, as you don't really run two Linux's at the exact same time.

Slackware detected your system to be UEFI, that is why it asked you to create an EFI partition. But I don't understand why the EFI partition was not already present since you already had Windows 10. Actually the Windows 10 should have had its boot loader on the EFI partition previously.

You cannot boot into the Windows because I guess the boot loader is missing since you deleted the EFI partition. The good point is that all your OS's are here, just the boot loaders are missing. First you should repair the Windows boot loader, then it is easy to reinstall the Linux bootloaders. I think we should do the Windows first since Windoze has the bloody bad habit of erasing anything else which is not Windoze.

So, do you have a windows repair disk, or did you generate recovery disks?

The best way would have been to read about UEFI first and to understand how UEFI boot loaders work, then install Slackware and install grub onto EFI partition from Slackware, then install Ubuntu and update grub.cfg in Slackware.

Thanks for your inputs.
There is one 500MB NTFS partition. It was there before I started installing Slackware. But It is not of EFI type. I will get details about it and paste it here for more details.

It was a preinstalled copy of Windows. I got another copy of Windows from which I launched command prompt to reset bootloader, however it did not work. Shall I create back UEFI partition again before running bootloader reset commands? (I deleted one which was created during Slackware install).

Yes, create back the EFI partition then try to repair Windows bootloader.

The EFI partition is usually of type FAT or labeled as EFI. That NTFS partition is something else. You don't have to worry about it.

You should not touch the already existing EFI partition, if you have Windows preinstalled and want to keep it:

However, as it seems that you already did it, I would follow aragorn's suggestion and try to restore Windows' boot loader. I hope that you have a backup of your data! Then, before you try again, you should read at least this document, from which the above quote was taken:

README_UEFI.TXT

EFI partitions are generally FAT32 and pre-installed windows 8 and newer are almost always UEFI. To get more info if you can't resolve this problem with the suggestions above, go to the site below and download and burn to a CD or flash drive the boot repair software. Boot the computer with it and select the option to Create BootInfo Summary and post a link to the output here.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

If your windows was UEFI, I'm surprised the Slackware installer did not detect that as already.
Additionally, if you had windows and Slackware EFI then you must also boot and install Ubuntu UEFI.

How to repair windows bootloader:
https://hetmanrecovery.com/recovery_...oot-loader.htm

I use refind to boot win10,win7 and slackware (using elilo). If there are functional boot partitions it adds them automatically.
https://slackbuilds.org/repository/1...?search=refind

Thanks a lot. I followed steps in mentioned links and from other forums, but It did not work. May be what needed is thorough understanding of all this, which I don't have at the moment. I have taken backup on secondary harddisk and will do a clean clean install of all OSs. I will follow what aragorn2101 has suggested above. Just to be on safer side, I am mentioning steps here. Please review them.

1) Create GPT partitions. First one will be 500MB UEFI. 2) ~200GB for Windows 3) ~150GB for UBUNTU 4) ~8GB for SWAP 5) Rest for Slackware being my primary OS for all work.
2) Install Windows 10 on first partition
3) Install Ubuntu on next (not sure how to skip its bootloader installation, Should I let it install?)
4) Install Slackware along with its bootloader ( I have LILO on Laptop which works good. Which one do you recommend?)

When you install Ubuntu, make sure you select the manual (Something Else) option for the install so you have some control over it. The link below gives details on dual booting Ubuntu and windows 10. I don't believe there is an option to NOT install Grub with Ubuntu so it should create and install grub file on the EFI partition and the other Grub files on the Ubuntu system partition.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks Yancek, Then I should install Slackware first and then go for Ubuntu as Slackware does give option to NOT to install bootloader. Hopefully, at the end GRUB from Ubuntu installer will detect the both Windows and Slackware.

Just to add my 2 cents, I installed slackware from a ISO image but I had problems with LILO because it did not show anything else in the boot menu after rebooting, so I removed lilo and lilosetup and installed grub2. After that everything was OK. Just remember, after removing LILO and installing GRUB2 run:

Reboot!

Yeah, I got that too. I noticed that when installing LILO, Slackware would copy a LILO EFI binary to the EFI partition under directory /EFI/Slackware/ but it would not add it to the EFI list of binaries using efibootmgr. So, your system becomes unbootable, unless you boot into the Slackware disc again, chroot into your hard drive Slackware and efibootmgr.

Anyway, for gnus, doing a clean install is the good way to go. You will understand how the system works. I recommend GRUB over LILO.

All the best.

I'm using EasyBCD to manage Windows 7, Slackware and several ext4 partitions which are used for distro testing/learning. By that procedure I can install all Linux bootloaders on their root partition and test them without worrying about MBR. However I'm not sure about EFI compatibility of EasyBCD as I have disabled it on my laptop.

For UEFI, I think rEFInd is best. http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/