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Can Linux be dual booted on a computer with Windows?

I have a Lenovo Yoga running Windows 10 on a 1TB SSD and at some point will probably have to upgrade it to Windows 11. I use it for school and have to keep Windows on it for now because of what I’m currently doing. I want to start getting into Linux in hopes of making the switch sometime down the line. Is partitioning the disk and dual booting Windows/Linux a thing and is it possible/easy to do? If so, what distro would anyone recommend? (I’ve heard good things about Mint). Back in the day I had gotten bored one night, installed Ubuntu on an external drive and played around with it a very tiny bit before forgetting about it, but that’s the extent of my Linux knowledge, so kindly keep explanations ELI5 :)

Edit: Thank you everyone! You’ve given me lots of good advice and knowledge, some terms to Google, and some good places to start. I appreciate it! Looking forward to joining the wonderful world of Linux!

Fisch ,
@Fisch@lemmy.ml avatar

I agree with the others that testing in a VM (Virtual Machine) first is probably a good idea. Keep in mind that because of missing 3D acceleration inside a VM things like desktop animations might not work.

As for distros, I’d recommend Mint or Fedora. I personally use Fedora.

What’s also important is the desktop environment you choose. The most popular ones are GNOME and KDE Plasma. GNOME is closer to MacOS than Windows and is made to just work while KDE Plasma has a layout similar to Windows out of the box but is very customizable and has a lot of options. Ubuntu uses GNOME but they make quite a few changes to it. Fedora uses GNOME by default but there’s also a KDE Plasma version, I think. Mint doesn’t have these 2 by default, you can always install them if you want to afterwards tho. The 3 options Mint gives you are also more Windows-like but I haven’t tried them myself, so I can’t tell you much about them. A VM would give you the ability to just install them, try them out and delete them afterwards. I personally use GNOME btw.

cyborganism ,

Brother, I’ve been dual-booting Windows and Linux since 2001. Of course you can do it.

Make sure you install windows FIRST. And then, Linux. Because each OS has its own bootloader and Windows doesn’t recognize Linux, but Linux recognizes Windows.

ethanolparty ,

I do this every day and the only problems I have is that it throws off Windows’ system clock (requiring a manual re-sync) and I have to re-pair my bluetooth headphones every time

crazybrain ,
@crazybrain@lemmy.spacestation14.com avatar

Both of those issues can be fixed.

ethanolparty ,

Nice to know about the clock fix, I’ll give that a try. I’ve actually done the bluetooth pairing method before but the problem is it’s a pretty fragile fix - sometimes it just stops working and then I’ve got to go through the whole process again. Easier to just re-pair whenever I switch OSes

ohlaph ,

I did something slightly different. I dual boot windows and linux. But each one is on a different hard drive. I have two SSDs that each one is dedicated to. Makes things easier.

CrabAndBroom ,

To add to what others have said, I’d recommend installing Windows first, then Linux. Windows tends to assume it’s the only OS that exists, so if there’s anything else on the boot sector (eg. your fresh new Linux install), it’ll just overwrite it without even checking lol.

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