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What is the most painless and minimal way to dual boot these days?

I’ve been happily Windows-free for about 5 years, but lately I need some Win-only software including a few games that don’t work at all on Linux. My main questions:

  • How to avoid Windows messing with my Linux install? Having a separate PC is not possible for me right now. I’m considering uninstalling grub and instead selecting the boot device I want from UEFI, idk if this is advisable though.
  • I’m also interested in how to get a Windows install that’s as minimal as possible: I don’t want to log in to a Microsoft account, I don’t want telemetry etc, I only want whatever is strictly required to make my system functional. The one thing I do want is Windows Defender cause ain’t no way I’m dealing with an antivirus.
  • Should I go for Win 11 or stick to 10?

Any tips or experiences are welcome!

Ps: I know this information is probably all out there, but I thought a post in this community about it would be useful for others as well.

rotopenguin ,
@rotopenguin@infosec.pub avatar

Might as well go for Win11, you’re going to have to deal with it next year anyways.

Windows doesn’t do minimal, it does whatever the hell it wants. There are some OOBE tricks to get a local account working.

I have used the privacy.sexy app to strip down some of the most obnoxious Win11 bits - be warned that you have to disable defender to have it work. Is it doing bad things? Is MS doing incredibly shady shit with their detections? Who’s to say? When I turn on Defender afterwards, everything seems “fine”.

There’s no need to get rid of grub, or play games with different boot drives. Get to know how EFI works. Look at efibootmgr’s output - that’s pretty much all that the firmware knows. The firmware has multiple entries consisting of a drive (magic device number), a program path (EFI\grub\grub_x64.efi), and maybe a string to pass along. There is a priority list (0003,0001,0002) which MS occasionally likes to re-arrange.

Quintus ,
@Quintus@lemmy.ml avatar

I would recommend going for the IoT LTSC versions of Windows.

massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

lurch ,

a bootable removable medium that can display and chainload all the installed OSes

Balinares ,

The default actually works pretty well these days.

Messing with the EFI partition, for instance by attempting to have two of those on separate disks, will probably cause you more pain than Windows will. As far as I understand, only one EFI partition can be configured in BIOS as the boot partition, so you will have to change the configuration in BIOS whenever you want to boot to the other OS.

Windows does have a history of changing the default EFI bootloader once in a while; however your chosen bootloader is still there, just not marked as the default anymore. A Windows app like EasyUEFI will let you change the default back.

possiblylinux127 , (edited )
  1. Get 16gb of ram and CPU less than 5 years old.
  2. Install Windows 11 in a VM
  3. Install the virtio drivers from the Fedora project link
  4. Profit
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble ,

How good are the virtio GPU drivers?

I’ve only really messed with them on servers with their ancient ass GPUs from like the early 2000s. Back in 2015 I remember running GTA 5 on a 2013 iMac with iris pro. In windows I got 30+ gps at 1080p, and through parallels I got about the same FPS at 720p.

possiblylinux127 ,

On Windows they can’t really be used for gaming to my knowledge. However, they are used for the UI

JoMiran ,
@JoMiran@lemmy.ml avatar

I like rEFInd

kuberoot ,

I also recommend rEFInd for the bootloader if you don’t want to set anything up (and risk messing up). You don’t need to configure your boot entries, it scans for boot options and shows them with a graphical interface, so your Linux and Windows should just show up.

recarsion OP ,

It does look like the easiest option so I will definitely use it, thanks!

Bisexual_Cookie ,
@Bisexual_Cookie@hexbear.net avatar

Letting windows install on its own drive by removing the linux drive (otherwise it will select that drives efi partition), I use systemd boot and I just copied the EFI/Microsoft folder from the windows drive efi partition to the linux efi partition systemd-boot will auto detect it. As for minimal, just use windows 10 ltsc, or windows education and use a debloater tool that is trustworthy (I like winutill).

CrabAndBroom ,

One thing I’ve been trying lately that’s a bit different: I happen to have an old SSD that had an enclosure with it (kind of like this) which essentially turns it into an external USB drive.

I then used Rufus to install Windows on that drive, using the “Windows To Go” option and also checking the option to not allow Windows to access the internal drives. That way, my laptop can just happily run Linux by itself, and if I need to use Windows for anything I can just plug the drive in, hit F12 on boot and choose to boot from that drive instead. The added bonus is that Windows also can’t mess with anything on my regular system or monkey about with the boot loader.

I’ve only had it on there for about a week but it seems to be working perfectly fine so far!

Oh and also Rufus gives you the option to start with a local account already set up, so you don’t have to do the MS online account bullshit. And then after install I used ShutUp10 to turn off as much telemetry as I could.

recarsion OP ,

Hm this sounds very interesting, it would be pretty convenient, I’ll look into it

2xsaiko ,
@2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Windows doesn’t mess with the Linux install anymore, that was with BIOS boot. Just make sure the EFI partition is big enough so you can fit both.

recarsion OP ,

Does it not? I’ve seen posts about grub being borked after Windows updates, or was that only on legacy BIOS systems?

Treble ,
@Treble@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

An update borked my eufi setup last year, good riddance, Microsoft.

vulgarcynic ,
@vulgarcynic@sh.itjust.works avatar

can report UEFI installs of PopOS and Mint were recently borked by a Win11 update.

fuckwit_mcbumcrumble ,

It’s not supposed to at least. There was a bug recently where it broke the bootloader. But windows is supposed to be able to tell there’s another OS and not break it.

2xsaiko ,
@2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

As far as I know, that only stops out of date versions of grub that have a certain vulnerability from running that would allow escaping Secure Boot. Meh. It doesn’t touch any Linux files or anything and you can boot if you turn off Secure Boot so you can fix it. Long shot from what used to happen where you could only have one boot loader installed at a time so installing Windows would wipe what was there before.

(and by fix it I mean replace grub with systemd-boot)

possiblylinux127 ,

Not true as of late

YurkshireLad ,

I added a second SSD to my windows laptop and installed Linux on it. I configured the BIOS to boot from this second SSD. Painless!

bloodfart ,

If your windows software works in a vm or wine then that might be a better choice for you.

The only thing windows will do with to a Linux install anymore is mess up the boot. People still say two separate drives is the optimal choice to prevent this but it really doesn’t save you from anything but fat fingering your own partitions during the install process and if the disks are the same size/interface/manufacturer it doesn’t do much there either.

So as has always been the case since dual booting existed: install windows first, saving the space you want to use for Linux then install whatever you want. Have your distributions preferred method of repairing failed boot on hand so that when something breaks unexpectedly you can fix it. Often it’s more than a boot repair tool, but an entire bootable environment that can be used for all kinds of purposes.

Use uup dump and rufus to make a windows installer and put it on a usb. I specifically recommend rufus as opposed to dd or other normal way of doing things because it has special options regarding windows oobe and requirements that will be invoked on use.

It doesn’t matter if you choose 10 or 11. Both can be had in ltsc channels. Dealers choice, you’re the one with software that needs it!

ExtremeDullard ,
@ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

The most painless way to dual-boot is to install something that’s not Windows alongside something else that’s not Windows.

Nomecks ,

Get a second pc and a kvm switch

just_another_person ,

If by “these days” you mean a motherboard that supports UEFI, then it honestly doesn’t matter anymore. Your board controls the boot order, and there isn’t an MBR for Windows to mess with anymore. Just plan out your partitioning careful before hand, and if you plan on using a lot of files in both OS’s, make a plain storage partition that is easily mounted under Windows (NTFS does not count).

Honestly, aside from a very scant number of apps or games, there isn’t a real need to dual boot anymore. If you can’t run something under Proton or Wine, having a Windows VM will get the job done.

recarsion OP ,

NTFS does not count

Aren’t NTFS and exFAT pretty much the only option?

just_another_person ,

Well, you can really mount whatever works in Linux with ESL, so that’s an option. Linux does have native NTFS support in the kernel, but I wouldn’t suggest using it for read/write because it can’t repair itself. It will almost certainly corrupt over time.

You can still use ext2fsd to use ext partitions in Windows I believe. FAT isn’t going to be the easiest to get along with more than likely.

Sonotsugipaa ,
@Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

As for the second question: Windows 11 IoT LTSC has yet to be mention here - the only things that can stop you from using it are legality and convenience.

I’m not sure if W10 has an IoT LTSC version, but W10 LTSC does exist.

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