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How to dual boot your Windows system to include SteamOS

How to dual boot your Windows system to include SteamOS

When Microsoft’s Windows operating system was in its nascent stage, we all used to double boot our systems to include the trusted old Windows 98 and any other new operating system from the same house, like Windows XP. However, as Windows grew in stature, we all forgot about double booting systems and prefer to have just one OS on our hard drive, such as Windows 7 or Windows 8. However, with the launch of gaming centric operating systems, such as the Valve’s SteamOS, computer geeks again want a double boot system, which now should include the highly famed SteamOS and a Windows partition. If you’re one of those here is the way you can double boot your Windows computer to include SteamOS. However, do remember that for this tutorial, we’ll be using the Ye Olde SteamOSe, a modification of the Valve’s SteamOS as it solves a lot of the problems that installing the conventional SteamOS have.

download

Download the operating system:
Obviously the first thing that you will have to do is to visit the homepage of Ye Olde SteamOSe and download the installer disc image.

Once done, you have to burn the ISO image to a DVD disc and remember to make it bootable. You can also transfer the image file to a USB drive, if you like to use your old thumb drive for the installation purposes. However, in this case you will have to use the Win32 Disk Imager to create a bootable US drive.

businessman working
Booting into your system:
Once you boot from the DVD or the USB drive, you have to choose the Power User Install option as this will give you the ability to create custom partitions, which you will require for the dual boot configuration.

If you forget that, the operating system will make use of all the disc space and hence will delete your previous Windows files.

Partition-Your-Hard-Drive-in-Windows-7

Partitioning your hard drive:

Once you’re in the Power User Install option, you will get an installer similar to the Debian Linux installer, this is obviously because the SteamOS is based on Linux. After the installation continues automatically for some time, you will get a Partitions disk screen. Once there, click on Manual and then Continue to start the partitioning process. Select the HDD partition that carries your Windows OS files and continue to resize it, to make space available for the new SteamOS. You can even use a completely different partition to install the new OS. After that you’ll be asked information about previous changes on the disk, here you have to select Yes and then Continue.

Create enough Free Space on the disk, which will later be used for the OS and the games for SteamOS. Then you’ll have to create several partitions, starting from the partition for the SteamOS base system, which should at least have 3GB of space.
Make this partition as Primary and ensure that the partition is set to “Use as: Ext4” and “Mount Point:/”. Select done and then Continue. After that you will have to create a Swap partition, which should be at least 2GB. Make this as a Logical partition. Third create the Recovery Partition of at least 3GB and set it to “Use as: Ext4.”. Click Continue and enter /boot/recovery as the partition’s mount point. Select Done and Continue. The last partition is the space the OS requires for games and hence create this partition with the maximum possible space. Once done, set it to “Use as: Ext4” and “Mount Point: /home”. Click Continue.

a girl doing work on her laptop
Finalizing:

Once the configuration steps are done, the installation will happen automatically, with just the installer asking you about to confirm the dual-boot setup with GRUB boot loader. Click Yes and Continue. Once the installation is completed, you’ll see a boot loader menu that will ask you to select the operating system to logon to every time you start your computer.

Summary:

A double boot Windows and SteamOS configuration adds more to your conventional desktop computer. Here are the steps you need to follow to install SteamOS in your Windows powered desktop.

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