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ELI8 Triple boot: 2 windows 1 linux

ph flag
h501

I want to multi-boot my system with two separate windows 10 and one ubuntu distro. Using the search function yielded only results about multi-booting one windows with two unixes, a process which seems straightforward enough.

Windows 10 though, when you install two versions of it on your pc, offers from what I can see its own "grub" ui allowing you to choose which OS to boot. I'm terribly worried this will make things funky and unnecessarily complicated when installing ubuntu.

I'm also worried about my primary partition count. I've seen you can have a maximum of 4, but I'd like to have a separate SSD for each OS, plus I already have 3 other HDDs for data storage and archive. That's a total of 6 drives and I'm confused about how to handle them. NAS solutions seem pretty expensive and for now I'd like to avoid them if I have a chance.

So, if you can, explain to me step by step if it's possible and how to setup this system, and what to look out for during the process.

Thanks in advance guys

(In case anyone asks, I really need to have two different windows installs; one of them will be for general use and the other one for audio work: that one needs to have the least possible drivers installed, especially graphics drivers, which seem to pointlessly interfere with audio interface drivers)

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ChanganAuto avatar
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ChanganAuto
No, Windows has no "grub" but it has its own multi-system capable bootloader (for Windows versions only). You can do what you want and dual-boot from Grub but then you'll find a two stages process: Select "Windows" from Grub > Select one of the Windows version from the Windows bootloader menu.
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ph flag
h501
Oh I see. I think I don't fully understand grub then. I'll check that out. What about partition counts instead? Do I have to setup my storage drives differently than OS drives?
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ChanganAuto avatar
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ChanganAuto
Let the respective installers take care of the partitioning. Assuming you already have the two Windows installed, that part was taken care by their installers. For Ubuntu have enough unallocated space and it's installer will too take care of the partitioning. Important: Prior to the Ubuntu installation disable Fast Startup in both Windows and, if needed, shrink one or more of Windows' partitions in order to have said unallocated space. Then simply selecting the option to "install alongside" will get Ubuntu installed with Grub containing an Windows entry.
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ChanganAuto avatar
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ChanganAuto
Additional data partitions are irrelevant for the OSes installations.
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oldfred avatar
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oldfred
UEFI or BIOS installs? If UEFI, you use gpt which has up to 128 partitions and even can have more. Newer systems are UEFI, so if hardware UEFI, best to have all systems installed in UEFI boot mode. If each drive has an ESP, you will get different entries in UEFI, but may have two that say Windows but are different. Windows will default to use first ESP as will Ubuntu. May be same for Windows. https://askubuntu.com/questions/16988/how-do-i-install-ubuntu-to-a-usb-key-without-using-startup-disk-creator & https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1396379
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ph flag
h501
ChanganAuto ok that's clear. Good to know that there's so much boot loading compatibility. oldfred you're right I'm on UEFI with GPT, the problem I had with primary partition count was actually with a laptop that was using MBR, forgot about that. As for ESPs, I've seen that leaving the default options and "Installing alongside" was the thing that worked for me when dual-booting my laptop, so I think I'll leave it at that; if it works like Changan said that'll be good. thanks both for your darn fast answers guys
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oldfred avatar
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oldfred
Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer only installs grub2's boot loader to the first drive's ESP. If you want each drive separately bootable you need an ESP on each drive and one of the work around links posted above. I have multiple installs, but main working install is in first drive, and second install overwrites it. So I have to boot main install & reinstall grub or manually edit /EFI/ubuntu/grub.cfg settings. I always put an ESP on every drive and now only use gpt even on my 2006 BIOS only laptop which then needs a bios_grub partition not an ESP.
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guiverc avatar
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guiverc
Please be specific with terms; what do you mean by Ubuntu *distro*; ie. what OS & release?
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