Debian / Derivatives
1. Prerequisites:
Before installation, you’ll need the following:
2. Installation Media Creation:
After downloading the ISO of your preferred distro, you will need to flash it to a USB drive to boot from it and install the OS. You can use tools such as Balena Etcher, Rufus, or other similar software to burn the ISO.
If you haven’t downloaded the ISOs yet, here’s where you can get them.
Download Rufus.
Select “ISO Image” and choose your distro’s ISO.
Insert your USB drive.
Select the correct Partition Scheme (GPT for modern systems).
Click Start and wait for it to finish.
Safely eject the USB.
Ventoy allows multiple ISO files on one USB. It’s perfect for testing or switching between OSes.
Extract and run
Ventoy2Disk.exe.Go to Options > Partition Style > GPT
Select your USB drive and click Install.
After installation, copy the ISO file directly to the Ventoy partition.
3. Partitioning for Dual Boot:
If you are trying to dual boot Linux alongside Windows, you will need to leave some unallocated space for the installer to detect and use. A minimum of 60 GiB is recommended for the Linux partition. If you plan on playing multiple large games, you may want to allocate even more space, as games installed on the Windows (NTFS) partition generally won’t work on Linux.
3.1 Steps:
To create a partition, open Disk Management, then right-click on your partition or drive. If you want to share the same SSD between two operating systems, right-click on the C: partition and select Shrink Volume. In the field Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB, enter the size you want to allocate to Linux and click Shrink.
After shrinking, you will see a black unallocated space of the same size. Do not create a new volume, leave it unallocated. Once confirmed, you can exit Disk Management and continue to the next step.
If you are not confident with partitioning and are worried you might mess something up, then take a screenshot of the Disk Management screen so you can identify which partitions are new and can be safely removed.
4. Installation Steps:
4.1 Booting from the Installation USB:
Assuming you have disabled Secure Boot, if you have not, hold the F2 key and press the Power button, keeping F2 held until you enter the BIOS screen. Inside the BIOS, go to the Security tab, turn off Secure Boot, then save the changes and exit. Once Secure Boot is disabled, plug in your USB drive, hold the Esc key, and press the Power button. When prompted to select a boot device, choose your USB drive and press Enter.
4.2 Installation:
Ubuntu
Once Ubuntu has booted, wait a few seconds and the installer should open automatically after a chime. If it doesn’t, click on the installer icon in the dock on the left side of the screen.
The installer will open on the language tab. Simply choose your preferred language and click 'Next'.
On the second tab, you’ll be asked if you want to enable any accessibility features. Enable any you need, or simply click 'Next' if you don’t want to use any.
On this screen, select your keyboard layout.
The installer will ask if you want to connect to the internet. It is recommended to do so in order to download updates and additional software.
If you connect to the internet, the installer may prompt you to update. Simply update it and continue with the setup.
For this step, choose 'Interactive Installation' and click 'Next'.
The default selection will install the basic set of apps, while the extended selection will include additional apps like LibreOffice and others. You can choose either option according to your preference.
You will be prompted to install third-party software and multimedia codecs. Simply enable both options to have them downloaded.
If you are dual-booting Ubuntu with Windows and have already done the partitioning in Windows, you will see the option to 'Install alongside Windows.' Simply select that and continue. For a standalone installation, select 'Erase disk and install Ubuntu,' making sure to choose the correct disk.
Simply enter your username, device name, set a password, and click 'Continue.
Select a timezone and click 'Next.'
Finally, the installer will show a summary of the selected options and the changes it will make. Make sure everything is correct, then click 'Install' and wait for the installation to complete.
Debian:
Begin by choosing your language, region, and keyboard layout.
If you are using Ethernet, the installer will automatically detect it and configure the connection for use during installation. If you plan to use Wi-Fi instead, the installer will prompt you to select your wireless card, which will look something like this:
On this page, select your Wi-Fi card (it is generally named wlo1). Simply choose the name of your Wi-Fi card and click Next.
On the next page, you will see a list of all the networks detected by the Wi-Fi card. Simply select your network and enter its passphrase to connect. If your network does not appear, try manually entering the ESSID (the network name), click Continue, and then enter the passphrase.
Once connected, the installer will simply proceed to the next step.
Enter a hostname (the name for your device).
You can leave this blank, as it isn’t something a home user typically needs. If you understand what this means and require it, enter your domain.
Enter the password for the root account.
Enter your name and username.
Enter the password for your user account.
Select your time zone. If your time zone doesn’t appear, you may have selected the wrong region. You can either go back and change it in the previous section or change it after the installation; it doesn’t matter.
If you are planning on dual booting Debian, choose Guided - use the largest continuous free space. This will allocate only the unassigned space to Debian, and the rest will remain unchanged.
If you are planning to use only Debian, choose Guided - use entire disk. This will wipe the drive and install Debian on it. If you want to partition the disk manually, choose Manual.
It is recommended for beginners to use a single partition for both root and home.
This will show a summary of the changes that will be made to the disk. After making sure everything is correct, including the drive you are installing to, scroll to the bottom and choose Finish partitioning and write changes to disk.
It will show the summary again, including the partitions that will be created and deleted. If everything is correct, simply accept and continue.
In this step, the installer will install the base system packages. Simply let it run and wait for it to complete.
You may be asked to take part in the popularity-contest survey. This step is completely optional; you can choose whether or not to participate.
The installer will ask which desktop environment to install and present you with several options. GNOME or KDE are recommended, but you may choose whichever option you prefer.
Finally, the installer will install everything. This step may take some time, so be patient and let it complete. Once the installation finishes, you will be prompted to reboot into the installed system; simply continue.
By default, Debian excludes the user from the sudo group, so you won’t be able to run commands with sudo, including apt. To fix this, log in as root and add your user to the sudo group.
After that, simply reboot and you will be able to use sudo normally.
Before installation, please check that basic functionality such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, keyboard, and trackpad works in the live installer. If not, the distro you selected may not yet support your hardware.
5. Uninstalling Linux
5.1 For Dual Boot Users
Ubuntu/Mint:
Open Disk Management in Windows, delete the Linux partitions, and then extend the partition from which the space was taken.
When Linux is installed alongside Windows, its bootloader files are copied to the Windows EFI system partition. To fully remove Linux, you’ll need to delete those files. If you skip this step, you might get an error on boot from the Linux bootloader saying it can’t find the Linux system.
Open PowerShell as administrator and run the following commands in order.
Now open a new PowerShell window as administrator while keeping the old one open.
For both Mint and Ubuntu, the folder is named Ubuntu, but it may be different for other distributions, so check the listed names.
Return to the previous window and run:
After that, you can close both windows and use Windows normally.
Debian:
Debian creates its own EFI System Partition (ESP), so you don’t need to manually remove the bootloader first. You can open Disk Management in Windows and delete all additional partitions created by Debian. Once those partitions are removed, Debian will be completely removed from your system.
Note that the Debian EFI partition cannot be deleted using Disk Management. To remove it, you’ll need to use diskpart manually.
Open PowerShell or Command Prompt as Administrator, then run the following commands:
Identify the drive where Windows and Debian are installed, then run the following commands:
Then list all partitons with
The following are the default partitions created by Windows and should not be removed. If you are using an OEM installation, a MyASUS partition may also appear in the list.
Partition 1
System
100MB
Partition 2
Reserved
16MB
Partition 3
Primary
C:
Partition 4
Recovery
591MB
The default partition created by Debian will usually appear as a 977 MB partition in Windows if you didn’t change the partition layout. You can identify it by comparing the partitions shown in Disk Management.
Once identified, simply remove it using the following command:
After that, extend the C: drive, and Debian should be completely removed from your system.
5.2 For Standalone Linux Installation:
If you want to return to Windows after using Linux, open DiskPart, select the Linux drive, and remove its filesystem by returning it to an uninitialized state using the clean command in DiskPart.
If you are using an Intel system and the Windows installer cannot detect your drive, disable VMD (Volume Management Device) in BIOS.
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