Want to install Linux Mint onto new Dell Windows 11 laptop

Tue Dec 5 21:06:18 UTC 2023

I've just bought a new Dell laptop that has a 1TB drive, 16GB of memory, and has Windows 11 Home edition installed.  I booted Windows and shrunk its partition down to about 400GB to make room for Linux.  I've done this before on a previous laptop, but I've noticed this time that the C: drive is encrypted with BitLocker, and there are several "Recovery" partitions.  Not wanting to inadvertently trash the Windows installation, I thought I'd ask what pitfalls to avoid.

Presently the drive is partitioned this way:
200MB    EFI System Partition
394.23GB C: NTFS (BitLocker Encrypted)
537.11GB Unallocated
990MB    Recovery Partition
19.73GB  Recovery Partition
1.49GB   Recovery Partition
15MB     Unallocated

When I press F12 at the start of bootup I get the following EFI boot devices:
Windows Boot Manager     <Default>
UEFI RST 2550 Micron 1024GB  2332427B5956
UEFI HTTPs Boot

I've booted Linux Mint 21.2 from a USB thumbdrive to check if it would run OK, but didn't proceed with the install.  It did hang when I tried to shutdown.  Then when I booted Windows it required the BitLocker key to continue.  Once entered, it continues to reboot successfully.  (I tried booting Linux Mint again, it came up, but again hung on shutdown.  However Windows did not require the BitLocker key when I booted Windows again.)

Hopefully you might understand my hesitancy with proceeding with the install, and so I thought I'd ask the group for advice for setting up this laptop to dual boot Windows and Linux.

Brian S

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