Dual booting your Windows laptop with Ubuntu.

January 26, 2020

So you’ve got accepted to FullStack Bootcamp, or you want to join in the webcast and follow along the lessons. But, you’re using a Windows OS and found out that Ruby on Rails doesn’t really play well with Windows.

You’ve already tried out using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), and saw how limited (and slow) it is.

You’ve also tried using a VM, but saw how slow it’s running.

Tried vagrant? (Having a hard time with setting up connection from vagrant to windows)

Uhh, how about a direct Ruby on Rails install? (Probably installed some gems and saw it isn’t working as it should)

Best way to go?

Get down and dirty with a unix OS, specifically with Ubuntu! (Any linux distro would do actually.) You can install a dual-boot instead so you won’t lose your Windows install. (We don’t want that to happen specially if your windows is licensed.)

Unlike setting up your Ruby on Rails development environment, there are lots of great articles in the web which gives you a step-by-step guide on how to dual boot your machine.

Here are a few of them:

• https://hackernoon.com/installing-ubuntu-18-04-along-with-windows-10-dual-boot-installation-for-deep-learning-f4cd91b58557
• https://itsfoss.com/install-ubuntu-1404-dual-boot-mode-windows-8-81-uefi/
• https://vitux.com/how-to-install-ubuntu-18-04-along-with-windows-10/
• https://www.linuxtechi.com/dual-boot-ubuntu-18-04-lts-with-windows-10/

Acer Laptops

Dual-booting an Acer laptop might present you challenges. Last time I dual booted an Acer, it bricked and I had to bring it back to the Acer store just to get it fixed. Apparently, Acer doesn’t really want it’s laptops dual booted to with another OS.

For those who are using an Acer laptop, it might be best to follow this:

• https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/533167/dual-boot

Thanks John Corsino for sending me the link on how to dual boot an Acer laptop.

Marc Dagatan
Chief Technical Officer
FullSuite

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