# Tutorial: Installing Ubuntu Multi-Boot on your Windows Computer
Author: Alex Yelovich
[[_TOC_]]
**BEFORE PROCEEDING MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE ANY IMPORTANT DATA BACKED UP ON A SEPARATE DRIVE**
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Search this document for "TODO".
## Required Materials
- A USB Flash Drive of size 8 GB or more (that will be overwritten)
- If you do not have one we are able to lend you one
- A hard drive with free space of at least 40 GB
## Partitioning and Creating an Installer (on Windows)
Note that if you have a separate drive from your Windows installation, then we highly
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* There should now be a block in that row that says `Unallocated`.
3. Download the Ubuntu 20.04 ISO from [here](https://releases.ubuntu.com/focal/ubuntu-20.04.6-desktop-amd64.iso).
4. Create a Bootable Installer for the Ubuntu ISO:
***THIS STAGE WILL ERASE YOUR FLASH DRIVE, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE BACKED UP ANY
IMPORTANT DATA ON IT BEFORE PROCEEDING**
* There are many ways to create a bootable installer, we recommend [balenaEtcher](https://etcher.balena.io/).
TODO Don't necessarily need to provide screenshots for balenaEtcher since there's only 3 buttons. But do add a visible warning that the USB drive will be overwritten/formatted and all data on it will be lost.
TODO Discuss USB, how big of a USB flash drive they need. Mention that it will be overwritten. We may provide USB drives during workshop or office hours.
## The First Reboot and Running the Ubuntu Installer
5. Reboot and enter the boot picker on your computer.
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installation. This is the grub bootloader. Whenever you want to boot into Ubuntu, select the
`Ubuntu` option, and whenever you want to boot into Windows choose the `Windows Boot Manager`
option.
## Linux
If you are already running Ubuntu 18.04 or 20.04 then you can choose to
leave your machine as-is if you are okay with adding a bunch of ROS
configurations to your machine (when I first joined, I personally was not,
so I opted for something else). Alternatively, if you are running any Linux
distribution, then you can install `distrobox` to run different distributions
on your machine in the command-line (two software members currently use this
setup, do keep in mind that it is not as compatible as with a bare-metal
install, but much more compatible, and faster, than a VM).
