Install Ubuntu on a new NVME SSD without dual boot

Murenius

8/30/24, 3:17 PM

I have an AMD4 based desktop PC running Windows 11 with a X570s chipset on a MSI main board. On said board I had two 1TB NVME SSDs so far, one for Windows 11 and one for games. Now I want to install Ubuntu on another, third, NVME SSD which I added today (since I want a real/non-VM installation able to use my NVIDIA GPU). I do not want dual boot, but instead have grub only on that third SSD and boot from it only when I press F12 at startup and select it in the boot menu.

I am not very used to Linux except for using it in VMs at work, so I asked colleagues about how to do this. They said to me that I would have to remove the two existing SSDs, install Ubuntu with only the new NVME SSD connected and only afterwards reinsert the original two SSDs. Now I do not want to do this since they are behind the GPU, with heat sinks with thermal pads. So I read articles here on askubuntu, and it seems this is not necessary in other setups, but I could not find an article which covers my situation.

Is there any way to make sure the Win 11 bootloader is guaranteed to be left alone and make sure grub is only installed to the new SSD? In the related posts it said to find the names like /dev/sda, /dev/sdb and so on for the drives, but how can I find out which is which before installing and how can I force the installer to leave the Win 11 drive alone?

Thanks!

0 + 3

grub2

dual-boot

Marco

8/30/24, 3:31 PM

Since (U)EFI, there is no bootloader anymore. UEFI shows all EFI partitions or boots from the first one found.

ubfan1

8/30/24, 3:39 PM

Which Ubuntu release are you installing? Ubuntu 23.04 fixed ignoring the user input for bootloader location. 22.04, see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1396379 Grub installs to wrong disk. Do add yourself to the "Does this affect me?" list on the bug. There are workarounds/solutions in the bug comments, like turning off the first two disks in the UEFI settings. Disk devices will not be like sd? but like nvme???

Murenius

8/30/24, 3:52 PM

Thanks guys, I'll flash a stick with 23.04 and have a look in the UEFI settings, then try installing.

Elon Musk

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EN: Install Ubuntu on a new NVME SSD without dual boot

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