Linux Dual Booting Adventures - Part 2: Installed at Last!

As of about 2 hours ago, Linux Mint has been installed on my laptop, and as of just under an hour ago, I've managed to get it into a stable configuration so that I can start it up normally :)

Say Hello "hippoalpha"

The setup process has not been without some very hairy moments. And, the setup I've got right now is not actually completely configured correctly yet...


I still need to do a lot of work to install drivers for:
1) the wifi, since it's bloody unstable... 1mbs sitting right in front of the bloody wifi router is just obscene!
2) the NVidia Optimus graphics setup - for now, I've just added the nouveau.modeset=1 hack to the grub command line so that I can get this booting reliably to do various setup tasks without having to remember to patch the boot line every single time
3) beats-audio configuration - it only uses the front speakers currently, which causes some strange problems when rebooting into windows (namely, there's always a popping noise before a sound plays; this problem goes away after restarting Windows a few times though :/
4) touchpad configuration - it's currently disabled, since I was accidentally leaning on it and causing it to fire up all manner of weird actions - not good when you're in the middle of trying to get some configuration settings sorted!
5) a large swathe of tools will still need to be installed as well before this setup can be declared fully production ready...


BUT, at least for basic things it works!


Anyways, I'll have a more detailed writeup about the full details of the setup process in another post on another day/later on, since I'm currently typing this while using a physical Ethernet cord plugged into the router and sitting on an uncomfortable chair.

In the meantime...

YIPPEE!!!

In the end, it boiled down to: "Just Do It!"