Hi all,

I am trying to access the installed Ubuntu partition on a UEFI, GPT and Secure boot enabled Windows 8 ultrabook (Sony Vaio Duo 11).

My partitions are shown in this screenshot.
http://i.imgur.com/9tIHjXC.png

The installation went fine. As expected after reboot I directly landed on Windows 8. Now, I would like to have a nice graphical Windows 8 boot manager (I have a touch screen. So thought this would be good to have) or Grub to choose which OS I boot to at the start. Could you please let me know how I should ideally go about achieving this.

I tried and failed:
I tried using EasyBCD 2.2 to create an entry for Ubuntu on the Windows boot manager. EasyBCD does not save my preferences. I follow this guide.

http://apcmag.com/how-to-dual-boot-w...-and-linux.htm

By default EasyBCD shows Ubuntu as Entry#1 and Windows 8 as Entry#2. I edit my boot menu by clicking on "Edit Boot Menu" option, and delete Ubuntu entry, click save settings. After a system restart I still see Ubuntu as Entry#1. The same happens when I change the boot order. Ubuntu is always first. I am not not sure why this is happening.

I formatted Ubuntu partition with OpenSuse, but still Ubuntu option shows up.

Other problems:
1) Why is it that I am not getting graphical Windows 8 boot manager like shown in the above link How to dual-boot Windows 8 and Linux. Instead I am getting this.
http://i.imgur.com/mwRYgOM.jpg

2) When I click on OpenSUSE I get errors as shown in the following screenshots.
http://i.imgur.com/d6MgmWy.png
http://i.imgur.com/R3ylwG0.jpg

I have been struggling to make Linux dual boot on my Windows 8 machine since the past month without any success. OpenSuse, Ubuntu all install fine. I just can't get to them. Please help.

The initial image you posted above shows five partitions. All of them are windows partitions. Two are labelled specifically as 'ntfs' and the others are too small to contain either Ubuntu or Opensuse. On that image you also indicate you installed Ubuntu, a swap partition and the Grub bootloader on "D". That is an ntfs partition which is windows only. Linux systems are not going to work on a windows formatted partition. There is nothing showing a separate partition for Linux with a Linux filesystem. You can install Ubuntu as a program to run inside windows. This is named "wubi" for windows Ubuntu installer. Is that what you did? If you did, the instructions you followed will not help as they are for installing a Linux OS on a separate partition.

EasyBCD is windows software and you might get more help at neosmart, either by reading their FAQ or posting at their forums (if they have one).

I have only tried windows 8 on VirtualBox, so am not really familiar with it. Usually, one would need to disable secure boot in the BIOS to enable booting Ubuntu/Opensuse although there may be way around this now.

Sorry for any misunderstanding. The screenshot was taken before I installed Ubuntu. I have booted Ubuntu via liveusb and formatted D:\ with ext4 and created a separate partition for Swap as well. The screenshot does not show all of that. The purpose was to show where the EFI partition was and where I have installed the grub boot loader.

I want to dual boot Windows 8 with Ubuntu. Not the Wubi way. Also, as far as I understand Wubi does not go well with UEFI. So, it is not recommended.

I tried using EasyBCD and failed as described in my post. I would like to know how to dual boot Ubuntu with Windows 8 with UEFI, GPT and Secure boot enabled from a person who has done that. It is not necessary to go with the EasyBCD route again for me.

EasyBCD does not understand UEFI.

EasyBCD uses grub4dos (without proper GPL licensing)
for chain-loading Linux based OSs on MBR style disks and BIOS firmware.

When you install Ubuntu on UEFI/GPT it places its boot loader (GRUB2) in EFI System Partition (ESP).

Windows 7/8 also places its boot manager in ESP.

You can dual boot using UEFI firmware (on DELL F12 key to select boot device/OS)
or using GRUB2 to chain load Windows UEFI boot manager.

Windows 8 cannot chain load foreign loaders on UEFI/GPT.

Thanks a lot for your comments boyans.

As far as I understand EasyBCD 2.2 does officially support EFI machines. At least the developer claims so.

From https://neosmart.net/blog/2012/annou...ting-and-more/ and I quote

If you have done dual booting on a UEFI machine could you please answer a couple of questions which will immensely help me.

1) Did you follow any guide? Could you please provide the link yo that guide if possible.

2) When installing Ubuntu, should we explicitly choose "device for boot loader installation" as /dev/sda or /dev/sda3 (EFI partition)?

3) How would I uninstall or install another distro on the same partition. Previously, we just used to reformat it. Now because the keys are stored in EFI partition, how do we remove them.

Can any noble soul answer my above 3 questions regarding installing Ubuntu on UEFI and GPT enabled ultrabook?