Frugal static install on HDD with grub on Windows 10

[Member kawe]

antiX 19.3/19.4 32-bit and 64-bit (both base)

Hi again,

a friend of mine is also interested in antiX now.

However, we don’t want to harm his Windows 10 (64-bit) installation and therefore we wonder if there is an easy way to get a frugal static install of antiX on his HDD running without another boot medium (using grub or any other boot manager) for evaluating. Is there a instruction written down for doing so? Is there any other option for doing so without touching the partitions of the HDD?

kawe

• This topic was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by kawe.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by anticapitalista. Reason: Moved to General questions

[Member Robin]

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Hello kawe,

I believe there are two expectations which contradict each other:

kawe wrote:

without touching the partitions of the HDD

and

kawe wrote:

don’t want to harm his Windows 10 (64-bit) installation

on the one hand, and on the other hand:

kawe wrote:

a frugal static install of antiX on his HDD running without another boot medium

The first problem is: You need to modify the existing Windows 10 boot loader if you want to boot any additional operating system without another boot medium. By doing this you do touch the windows installation already, and also the boot entries in the existing boot partition are changed. Worst case scenery is your windows won’t boot anymore.

So make sure you have a full backup copy of your hard drive before starting, so you can restore everything in case of failure easily and simply start over for a next try.

Generally you have two options: Use an additional boot medium, or modify the boot sector of your hdd. One of these you have to chose, otherwise your PC wouldn’t know anything about your desire of starting antiX.

And the next step: Frugal static installation asks for a (small) empty partition on your hdd, so you’ll have to free up a bit of space by decreasing one of the original partitions using a partition manager and create an additional empty partition for Frugal static install.

Maybe there is a way to run it from an image file stored on one of the existing hdd partitions simply, but wait for other answers on this specific method, I never have done this.

There is a help video about antiX frugal install from Dolphin Oracle, you might want to watch it.

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Moderator christophe]

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Robin is right about what sounds like contradictions in your question. But here’s what I would do:

Definitely watch this video by Dolphin_Oracle (as mentioned by Robin): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZGTBUW3bnA

A summary of the frugal option is this: you boot from live-usb, choosing frugal (with or without persistence). Booting from the live-usb menu this way will copy the live-usb’s contents onto the hdd/ssd. IT WILL NOT PARTITION THE DRIVE & IT WILL NOT ADD ANYTHING TO THE WINDOWS BOOTLOADER. It’s just a folder on the hdd, right there next to windows, on the same partition. You need the live-usb to boot it each time, i.e., using the live-usb’s bootloader, not your computer’s hdd bootloader.

Or just use the live-usb to boot the system, running from the the stick. USB 2.0 and above versions will work very well this way on most computers, in my experience.

But start from Dolphin_Oracle’s video. Maybe watch more videos from his channel, if they look interesting to you. Then try it out. AFTER you have booted into a live instance at least once or twice, report back here with any questions you may have.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by christophe. Reason: clarification

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member olsztyn]

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I am using Live/Frugal forms of antiX exclusively, mostly just booting from little USB plugs or from hard disk hosting antiX Live without USB media using Syslinux/Extlinux.
From my experience, as the advice from Robin and Christophe exhaustively explain, if boot scheme on the Windows disk is to be left untouched then the objective can be only accomplished booting from USB or another boot channel available (e.g. CD).
The question posted by kawe however opens a wider opportunity for enhancements to be considered:

– Although most common boot manager in Linux world is Grub2, installation of which would provide boot selection for both Windows and Frugal installations on hard disk, it is utterly unwieldy and messy code that it appears it must have been intentionally designed in such way to satisfy arrogance of code owners more than serving best interest of users.
For this reason Intel’s Clear Linux dropped Grub2 entirely and is using Linux Boot Manager based on Syslinux/Extlinux for a smooth and reliable coexistence of Windows and Linux installations. When such Linux Boot Manager is implemented the existing Windows installation will be shown on the boot menu as well as other bootable systems, including Frugals, when appropriately configured.

– As antiX Live-USB-Maker allows to install antiX Live directly to the HD, so no USB media is required to boot, unfortunately Live-USB-Maker remaps the entire target drive, although providing an option to leave a separate, non-antiX partition of any size. To boot antiX Live installed on HD the same Syslinux/Extlinux boot manager is used though, not Grub2.

For further advancement in the already great boot technology antiX employs already I would suggest and additional improvement is made in Live-USB-Maker. Namely as Live-USB-Maker allows to specify a separate partition outside of antiX , which it offers to format as NTFS as one of format options, it would be a significant enhancement if Live-USB-Maker allowed to install antiX Live to a specified free partition on HD and leaving existing partition, such as Windows intact.
As Syslinux/Extlinux is used as boot manager in such case, make the existing Windows partition bootable from the menu, similarly to the way Intel’s Clear Linux is doing…
Any Frugal installations would be also made available directly from the menu…
I do not know how much of an effort it is to accomplish this but this would bring antiX boot capabilities to another level…
Just an idea…

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by olsztyn.

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

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