Installing Fedora Workstation - Dual Boot with Windows on Dynabook R734/K

Fedora is a Linux distribution known for its security. It is well-known for servers, but it is also available for desktops and laptops through its ‘Fedora Workstation’. In this post, I’ll share how to install Fedora Workstation and dual-boot it with Windows (example on Dynabook R734/K laptop).

Licosha — Welcome to yet another post of me installing another Linux distro (distribution) on my Dynabook R734/K laptop 😋. And yep, still dual-booting it with the installed Windows.

From many Linux distros, Fedora is one of the most popular. If you are reading this on a browser app on my blog, it’s because this blog is hosted on a server, and Fedora is known for servers due to its security.

But not just servers; in this post, I’m actually talking about Fedora Workstation. Fedora Workstation is, of course, a Fedora distro, but with a shipped desktop environment, just like other Linux distros such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc. (you can also read some dual-boot articles for those distros on this blog).

Fedora uses the Gnome desktop environment for it’s default, which is one of, if not the most popular desktop environments now, known for its modern and slick design with high customizability.

My environment:

Fedora version: 36.
Installed OS: Windows 8.1.
Media booting method: Ventoy.
Device: Toshiba Dynabook R734/K

Steps installing Fedora Workstation – dual boot with Windows (example on Dynabook R734/K laptop)

Booting Fedora Workstation installation media

Visit the official download page for Fedora Workstation at fedoraproject.org/workstation/download and acquire the OS image (iso).
Prepare the Fedora installation media using Ventoy to create a bootable setup from the downloaded iso image.
[Recommended] Create a new empty partition on your laptop’s hard drive dedicated to Fedora installation. Utilize Windows’ “Disk Info” tool for easy partitioning, aiming for around ±40 GB or more with a labeled partition like “Fedora.”
Before installation, disconnect all external devices, especially storage devices, to prevent potential formatting or erasing errors.
Access the “Boot Menu” (BIOS menu) on Dynabook R734/K by restarting the laptop and repeatedly pressing F12 until the boot menu/BIOS menu appears.
If the Fedora installation media (e.g., USB storage stick) is not plugged in, do so at this point in the BIOS Boot Menu.
In the Boot Menu, select the installation media to boot into it directly, or adjust the boot order to prioritize the installation media for automatic booting. Follow these steps:
1. Choose “Enter Setup” from the Boot Menu main menu.
2. In the side menu, choose “Advanced,” scroll down, and select “Change Boot Order.”
3. Set the USB Memory (or your relevant storage) where the boot media of our Fedora image is placed / installed, to the top of the Boot Priority Options and click “OK.”
4. Select “Exit” → “Exit Saving Changes” from the side menu.
In the Ventoy boot menu, consider switching to “GRUB2 Mode” for increased compatibility in booting Linux images by pressing Ctrl+R. Then, select the Fedora iso image and hit Enter to initiate the Fedora OS live media boot process.
We will be booted into Fedora live image GRUB menu, choose “Test this media & start Fedora…” to check for error on the installation media / image first. After the checking was done, we will be taken directly into the Fedora live image desktop environment.

Installing Fedora Workstation to our PC / laptop’s disk

On the freshly booted Fedora Workstation live image desktop, choose “Install to Hard Drive” to begin our installation process.
First thing first, we can choose the language. After done, click the “Continue” button on the bottom right.
Next on the “Installation summary” window, choose “Installation Destination” to configure the location of where Fedora will be installed on our PC disk.
On the “Device Selection” section, click the disk will be used. Since I want to install it on my laptop’s main disk, obviously it is the first disk a.k.a the one labelled “sda” under it here.
Then on the “Storage Configuration” section below it, we can configure the partition we want to use on the disk and more, choose “Advanced Custom…” to manually configure the partition. Click “Done” button on top left to proceed.
Next after it, we will be redirected to the GUI partitioning window. Remember that I have prepared the partition for where Fedora will be installed beforehand, so I just need to click on that partition here. Right click on that partition and choose “Edit” → “Format”.
Now the format window will appear. On the “Select new format”, choose ext4. Also give the partition label to easily distinguish it from the rest of the partitions. On the “Enter new mountpoint”, fill it with / to use the partition as the root of our Fedora OS. Then click the “Format” button below to finaly format the partition.
Next choose the EFI partition, where the Fedora boot entry will be added to. Usually it is the first partition of our PC main disk, right click on it and select “Edit” → “Set mountpoint”, the fill it with /boot/efi. Click “Set mountpoint” to apply the change.
We’re done with the required partition configuration here, click “Done” button on the top left of the window. You can view the summary the partitions that will be changed, then click “Accept Changes”button on bottom right to finalize it.
We will be taken back to the “Installation Summary” window, all required configurations have been done here for me, so click “Begin Installation” button on the bottom right to start installing Fedora to our PC.
Done! After the installation was finish (showing “Complete”), click the “Finish Installation” button on bottom right to close the installation window, then restart our PC. The next time we boot we will be presented with Fedora GRUB boot menu, of course choose the first “Fedora Linux…” to boot into the installed Fedora Workstation desktop environment.

Fedora Workstation fresh install welcome screen

Installing Dual Boot Fedora (36) and Windows on Dynabook R734/K video on Youtube.

Fixing Reboot Loop on Fedora

If you experienced reboot loop after restarting your PC after installed Fedora (Of course I experienced it on my Dynabook R734/K), follow these steps below. The bugs caused by Shim’s bugs:

Reboot again into Fedora live image environment (Booting fedora section above). But this time on the welcome wizard, we just close it or click Try Fedora.
Mount the EFI partition. We can do this easily by using Disks app: Click on the disk where our EFI partition located, mostly will be the the first partition on the first disk on the disks list, click the triangle icon below it to mount it (Requires su access, make sure to authenticate it).
Copy the location of the mounted EFI partition.
Open Terminal and cd (change directory) to the mounted EFI location (On my case it’s mounted to /run/media/liveuser/SYSTEM).
Remove the bugged EFI entry, type this on terminal: rm EFI/Boot/fbx64.efi
Copy the Fedora grub to the boot entry: cp EFI/fedora/grubx64.efi EFI/Boot
Done! Power off PC, unplug the Fedora live media device and restart our PC, the Fedora GRUB menu should appears now.