How to set up Ubuntu and Kubuntu 22.04. on a Dell Laptop

Installing Linux distros (especially Ubuntu & Kubuntu) can be fairly straight forward. However on Dell Laptops the same task is surprisingly tricky. Therefore I thought I share my experiences to reduce the pain for others.

Some background

I have been using Windows for more than 20 years now. For playing games, doing simple day-to-day tasks it has been very reliable for me. However I faced many issues programming in Python. As an example the GPU accelerated Pandas, Numpy and Sklearn counterpart, RAPIDS, cannot be installed on Windows at all.
I used Mac OS in the past as well, but I never felt comfortable using it. This is personal flavour of course.

The general steps to install Ubuntu and Kubuntu

The installation process usually just has a few steps:

1. Make a backup of your files or even whole system. (Some steps of this process might corrupt files or even the Windows OS).
2. Download the Ubuntu or Kubuntu iso file.
3. Prepare a USB stick (min. 9GB capacity) using Rufus to make it a bootable drive.
4. Restart the computer and enter the BIOS (to enter BIOS you have to press a key during the booting process. The key to press will vary with the device in use. I.e. my Dell laptop required F12 to be pressed).
5. Boot using the USB stick from within the BIOS.
6. Test or right away install the desired Linux distro.

Depending on your internet connection and the speed of your USB stick and connection this will take 30–60 minutes overall.

Dual booting

Linux distros can be installed as the new standalone OS or as a secondary OS using dual booting. Dual booting requires an unused partition or SSD to write the Linux distro onto.

The caveats of dual booting

At first glance dual booting seems tempting as it has the best of both worlds (let’s imagine gaming on Windows and coding on a Linux distro). However setting up dual booting comes with strong downsides:

• For dual booting alongside windows “secure boot” has to be deactivated. If you want to use Bitlocker for encryption this turns quite unpleasant. When secure boot is deactivated the system will ask for the Bitlocker key whenever the system boots.
• If you require software that only runs on Windows (i.e. Tableau Desktop) then you need to restart the computer whenever you need that software, but actually work inside a Linux distro in that moment. Here using a virtual machine like Oracle’s Virtualbox to run Windows inside a Linux distro is more practical.
• For dual boot it is recommended to use a second SSD rather than just a partition. I read that windows updates may crash the Linux installation when updating.
• If you used Virtualbox on Windows to run Linux inside a VM then you might have switched off some settings like Hyper-V to get this running. These settings must be enabled to enable dual booting however.

Extra steps needed on Dell laptops

For Dell laptops there two additional requirements:

• On default the Ubuntu and Kubuntu installers won’t recognize the SSD. Therefore it is required to switch the storage setting in the BIOS from RAID to AHCI. Caution: This may corrupt files and settings on an already existing Windows installation (I tested it and after switching forth and back my laptop has not been able to recognize any WiFi network anymore). Before trying this step save all of the files or even the whole system.

BIOS settings in Dell laptops (might vary depending on the model)

• Additionally fast boot needs to be disabled. This step happens via the Windows settings.

Disabling fast boot.

After both steps have been executed the bootable USB drive should be able to run the full installation routine. Thus the full process for Dell laptops looks like this:

1. Make a backup of your files or even whole system. (Some steps of this process might corrupt files or even the Windows OS).
2. Disable fast boot in the Windows settings.
3. Switch the storage setting in the BIOS from RAID to AHCI.
4. Download the Ubuntu or Kubuntu iso file.
5. Prepare a USB stick (min. 9GB capacity) using Rufus to make it a bootable drive.
6. Restart the computer and enter the BIOS .
7. Boot using the USB stick from within the BIOS.
8. Test or right away install the desired Linux distro.

The third way — Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

An additional way to make use of Ubuntu on Windows is the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). This is a lightweight integration has matured significantly with WSL 2 and even more with the release of Windows 11.

The installation can be done via poweshell using:

wsl — install

Another way is it to install Ubuntu from the Microsoft store.

WSL does not come with a UI and does support terminal environment only. For a UI dual boot or standalone installations are still required.

Closing words

There are probably alternative or better ways to setup Linux distros on Windows (and specifically Dell laptops). Please feel encouraged to share your knowledge and experience in the comments.