Pro tip for anyone who wants to try Linux and maybe attempt to set up dual boot with Windows:
TURN OFF BITLOCKER ENCRYPTION IN WINDOWS FIRST.
IF you don’t, here’s what happened to me:
Mint live USB instance booted easily at first. I started the install process and selected dual boot. Mint setup then proceeded to prompt me to enroll a MACHINE OWNER KEY… And then realized that bitlocker encryption would prevent it from setting up dual boot.
It said, to paraphrase, “exit mint setup, log back into Windows, disable bitlocker, then you can come back and install”
Well that was a fucking lie because YOU CANNOT GET BACK INTO MINT!
WHY? Because mint FORGOT the MOK!
When you try to get back into mint from the boot selection menu, it says
Something has gone seriously wrong: import_mok_state() failed: Not Found
the upshot is that you computer will never let mint live USB session ever boot again UNLESS you disable secure boot in BIOS and rename grub to mmx64.efi in the ISO image.
And if you DO those things chances are mint will never present you with the option to detect and set up dual boot with you extant windows instance ever again.
I went ahead and nuked my windows 11 instance on my laptop because it was being a bitch and clearly was never going to be a good neighbor to mint. I have no major regrets because mint is nice and I like it. It just didn’t turn out how I would’ve ideally intended. But one way or another Windows 11 HAD TO GO. So, in the broad sense, I wanted to switch to mint… And I have! All good.
I have mint running on my laptop now.
Pro tip for anyone who wants to try Linux and maybe attempt to set up dual boot with Windows:
TURN OFF BITLOCKER ENCRYPTION IN WINDOWS FIRST.
IF you don’t, here’s what happened to me:
Mint live USB instance booted easily at first. I started the install process and selected dual boot. Mint setup then proceeded to prompt me to enroll a MACHINE OWNER KEY… And then realized that bitlocker encryption would prevent it from setting up dual boot.
It said, to paraphrase, “exit mint setup, log back into Windows, disable bitlocker, then you can come back and install”
Well that was a fucking lie because YOU CANNOT GET BACK INTO MINT!
WHY? Because mint FORGOT the MOK!
When you try to get back into mint from the boot selection menu, it says
Something has gone seriously wrong: import_mok_state() failed: Not Foundthe upshot is that you computer will never let mint live USB session ever boot again UNLESS you disable secure boot in BIOS and rename grub to mmx64.efi in the ISO image.
And if you DO those things chances are mint will never present you with the option to detect and set up dual boot with you extant windows instance ever again.
I went ahead and nuked my windows 11 instance on my laptop because it was being a bitch and clearly was never going to be a good neighbor to mint. I have no major regrets because mint is nice and I like it. It just didn’t turn out how I would’ve ideally intended. But one way or another Windows 11 HAD TO GO. So, in the broad sense, I wanted to switch to mint… And I have! All good.