I have been trying to change the boot order so I can dual boot. I have a nice laptop and I never use it because I rarely need windows but there are a couple of applications I can't get rid of. It's a dell inspiron and I can access system bios but nowhere can I find how to change the boot order. I even tried to follow this tutorial http://www.thewindowsclub.com/access...gs-windows-8-1 but my laptop isn't set up that way. Any suggestions?

Dual boot what? You only mention having windows and posted a link to a discussion of windows 8. Is that what you have? If you have another OS installed, what is it? Also, which bootloader are you using? If you are using windows 8 or 10, you can change what boots first or last from bcdedit from windows powershell as administrator. You should be able to find a lot of tutorials and instructions on modifying the boot order with bcdedit with google.

If you aren't using the windows bootloader, you need to post some details.

I haven't installed any other bootloader. The only thing on it right now is windows but i want to install one of the distros on it (not sure which). I'll try bcdedit. I read up on it and it should do the trick. Thanks. Anything else I need to know? I use gparted live for partitioning and I know windows has to be installed first so I should be okay there. Sorry to sound stupid but even though I haven't been using linux that long I know a lot more about it than I do windows. I even installed freebsd on a computer with windows 7 (I wiped it) and it worked great. Thanks for the info.

If all you have on the HDD is Windows, unless you can't boot from a DVD drive or USB flash drive, you shouldn't have to worry about the boot order. Installing most Linux distros will offer the option of installing a bootloader (typically GRUB) which can boot the Linux distro or the Windows loader.

You can use bcdedit to put multiple entries on it's boot menu including an entry to boot some Linux distribution. Of course you can't do this until you have some Linux distribution actually installed and it's a somewhat convoluted process. Using the Linux Grub bootloader is going to be much easier than using bcdedit.

One thing I would suggest you do is verify whether your windows 8 is using UEFI which is the default if it was pre-installed. The method of booting will be very different so you might want to do an online search for dual-booting windows with whatever Linux you decided on using UEFI.

It definitely uses uefi. I guess it's back to googling for me. Thanks for the info,

bsth123,

Make sure that you have made a backup of W8.1 first and then read this dual-boot guide or a similar one:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/d...-8-ubuntu.html

I think the OP actually wants a boot option screen so s?he can boot from a Linux install media - USB say.
I haven't found a machine where that can't be done easily - so long as you are quick. Take note of any vendor splash screen that might pop up for keys to use - say <F9> or <F12>, maybe <Esc>. If you miss it, reboot immediately. As soon as the screen goes bank after the power-on, hit the right key - if unsure, go through them all; <Del>, <Pg-up>, everything ...

And UEFI is fantastic - ignore all the horror stories.

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Once you have Linux installed alongside your Windows 8 you can change the boot order by editing the /etc/default/grub file and change the default number.

I tried what was listed and I couldn't get anything to work and then I discovered that if I hit F12 I could change my boot order. I started installing slackware and so far so good. The only problem is slack uses lilo so I have to read up on it. I'll put debian on my new computer and probably arch. I also have FreeBSD, kubuntu on a notebook and a chromebook. I'm really learning a lot!

Thanks!

Sounds like you have been busy.

Enjoy your Linux.

I'm just getting started. My goal is to eventually know enough to install LFS

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LFS is complex but the documentation is good!

Good Luck to you.

Don't forget to mark your thread solved.

I've read some of the documentation and it's pretty complex. it's going to be a while before I'm ready. I'm going to need a lot of good wishes. Thanks!

+1 #8 tho I let 'them' scare me into hiding in VirtualBox on M$WinX
Great to hear your success in #10!
Here's my tiny alternative to LFS 'learning from the bottom up' idea:
build a minimal linux! Sounds like a 1day'er but I haven't tried it YET
I enjoy the prebuilt .iso in VBox: kernel + init=/bin/sh=busybox boggles the mind!

Take you time & ENJOY! Best wishes!