Installing Manjaro next to Mint and Windows 10

Hi all,

I’m interested in installing Manjaro as a third boot option on my PC, I currently run linux mint xfce and Windows 10. I tried Manjaro on an old computer and loved it and want to figure out how to install it on my current computer. Last time I tried it I tried to install it over Mint and it was a disaster and had to reinstall Windows and Mint. I got stuck on the grub bootloader.

From what I understand is Mint bootloader can’t boot Manjaro, but if I install the Manjaro bootloader I can choose to boot Windows, Mint, or Manjaro from there. I want to shrink my Windows partition by 100gb for space for Manjaro and have it as a third option. I’ve looked on the Manjaro wiki but I"m a noob and can’t really understand partitioning things correctly. I’d appreciate some detailed instructions (steps for graphical installer, which partitions (beyond the 100gb one, if any, I need to create) on how to install Manjaro using its graphical installer in a way that maintains both Windows and Mint.

-if I shrink a partition from Windows, how should this be formatted? I want this to be 100gb
-do I need any additional partitions?
-do I install the Manjaro bootloader over the Mint bootloader? I beleve this is in /dev/nvme0n1pt (EFI system partition (100mb) (flags boot, legacy_boot_,esp)
-the goal is to have the manjaro bootloader pop up and be able to choose either of these three OSs whenever

I’ve coped the info for my current partitions below.

Really appreciate your help.

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 476.96 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: PM961 NVMe SAMSUNG 512GB
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 37AB22AF-88BC-4161-A744-EFDD58534716

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 206847 204800 100M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2 206848 239615 32768 16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/nvme0n1p3 239616 803041943 802802328 382.8G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p4 999178240 1000212479 1034240 505M Windows recovery environmen
/dev/nvme0n1p5 803043328 999178239 196134912 93.5G Linux filesystem

Partition table entries are not in disk order.

Disk /dev/loop8: 173.24 MiB, 181649408 bytes, 354784 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop9: 226.68 MiB, 237678592 bytes, 464216 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop10: 73.10 MiB, 77565952 bytes, 151496 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Welcome at the forum, @watdryhope,

Shrinking is most safely done from within Windoze with Windoze tools for that application. If you get 100 GiB, you should be fine for Manjaro. I would format that partition before starting the Calamares installer with ext4.

No, one partition would be fine. Certainly, if you ask here in the forum you will find hundreds of different opinions, some will tell you you should have a /home partition, others will recommend to have a swap partition, but all this is not really needed, you can create a swap file later-on if you have less than 8 GiB memory.

This is the tricky part. You have two options:

  1. You use the existing /boot/efi partition for the Manjaro grub bootloader (to be selected within the Calamares installer)
  2. You create a separate /boot/efi partition to avoid interferences with Windoze updates.

The second option is safer but makes your system a bit more complex. I would go for 1. and fix the system (as it’s not very difficult) in case Wondoze causes some issues later-on.

After installation you need to select the Manjaro entry to boot from your firmware settings. When booted successfully, enter

sudo update-grub

and reboot to get the boot menu entries for the other OS.

If you have any specific questions, better ask before doing something stupid … :crazy_face:

thanks a lot for this. i’m just wondering what the practical implications for using an additional boot partition, as you say, because it makes it more complex? like, when i’m booting up is it just a matter of going into bios and putting the dedicated manjaro boot/efi as highest priority? once i do that will this bootloader also show the other os’ or are they separated because of the partition? i guess if that’s the case i need to change bios boot priorities to boot mint/windows? if that’s the case it’s not a huge deal if i know for sure this will be safer bc it maintains the integrity of the mint bootloader.

my concern with the first option is that i’m worried the issue will occur that i had before where it boots into a black grub screen, presumably an error with the mint bootloader. i guess if this works fine then i have all the options (mint/windows/manjaro) through the manjaro bootloader?

thanks!

Details of the subject one or two /boot/efi partitions can be read in thehis tutorial, in Arch wiki and in wikipedia:

I would like to encourage you to use the search function, a lot of answers to your question can be found as this is not a new subject. :wink:

Hi,
Thanks for the info. I’ve been doing a lot of researching, including on that site, before I posted, but I couldn’t find specific noob answers or that I"m not understanding specifically what is being set down. For instance, I didn’t see an answer to the Bios question I posted above, which I guess is the crux of it all. The ‘How to’ site says safer but I"m not sure what the daily implications of that are.

Thanks!

What interferences do you mean? Despite general belief Windows will not mess up EFI partition (different question though if we talk about MBR). Windows WILL from time to time (specially with feature updates) set default boot to itself. But having a different EFI partition is not going to help with that

Hi all,

Thanks for the comments. Installation worked fine just letting Calamares do its thing And install in the empty partition. Boot now loads Manjaro grub and I can launch either windows, mint or manj from there. Thanks for the help!