I was originally hoping to do it this way and be able to dual boot them, but the more I think about it the more I feel that just going straight to Linux and biting the bullet would be better in the long run, and I can flash Windows if I really need it.
It is certainly possible to dual boot (in my experience, with the occasional headache that you may, or may not be willing to deal with) Windows and Linux, but yes, the most reliable installation would be one, or the other.
I was trying to get GRUB to act as boot loader but for the longest time I couldn’t even get GRUB running, even with at least 5 different troubleshooting ideas
Hrm, I’m not sure how you are going about your installation procedure. You mentioned that you are installing Ubuntu, but Ubuntu should come with Grub pre packaged. Installing Ubuntu really only requires clicking a couple buttons in the install wizard.
but I figured out how to get Linux desktop running via shimx64.efi in the BIOS boot loader.
Im not really familiar with shim, but, from what I understand, it’s the loader for when you have secure boot enabled, but you should have that disabled.