How to install 2nd OS (elementary OS) on a laptop with UEFI, so as not to accidentally delete the already installed Windows 8.1?

Question

linux

How to do it without hitting Windows. And how to make a choice of OS when booting a computer?

Answer 1

The installation itself is no different from the usual one, reduce the windows partition, create partitions for linux, install. Because windows is already installed, the uefi partition has already been created. There are a lot of ways to organize the choice of OSes for booting, from the usual installation of grub2 (it already supports uefi) to prescribing paths to boot partitions (files) directly in the UEFI bios of the motherboard (I do).
I advise you to read https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Exten...

Answer 2

Solved a similar problem with fedora x64 so my answer is approximate.
Follow John Smith 's recommendations . In addition, you need a free primary partition where to put it.
Using rufus, upload elemetary.iso to the flash drive by selecting the UEFI boot entry option.
From the BIOS, start booting from a uefi flash drive, put it on a free primary - during the installation of elementary, you should create an additional approximately 100 megabyte partition for uefi.
I want to add that if you create a partition for uefi with Linux, you can set a larger size so that everything is enough.
As correctly noted, kale needs to be added to the already created win uefi partition