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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.

friend_of_satan ,

My first line of investigation here would be virtualization. It will solve the “don’t mess with my Linux install” problem and will let you use the windows apps you need at the same time as the Linux apps you normally use. Also VMs have all their other useful features like snapshots and portability.

I did this in the distant past and it was quite convenient having the VM instead of a dual boot.

IzzyChambers ,
@IzzyChambers@vivaldi.net avatar

@friend_of_satan @recarsion yes, I’ve been using Windows 11 as a guest OS in VirtualBox for two months, after I switched to Linux as my main OS. I like it much more than dual booting.

recarsion OP ,

Good thinking, I’ll definitely look into that. One caveat is I’m going to need a driver that’s also Win-only so I’ll have to see if that works in a VM.

possiblylinux127 ,

For what hardware?

recarsion OP ,

Fanatec racing wheel and pedals - although this one technically works on Linux as well through hid-fanatecff which is what I’m currently using but the official ones would be better

SteelCorrelation ,

Yeah, VMs are a good route since the OP didn’t mention gaming.

recarsion OP ,

I should have, gonna edit the post

ionizedgears ,

I recommend QEMU/KVM with GPU passthrough (will require two GPUs but an iGPU will suffice for the host Linux install if you don’t need a powerful GPU for it). You don’t get complete bare metal performance but it’s close.

You can do USB passthrough for your gaming peripherals with the windows-only drivers installed on the VM.

I actually do this now for video games but with a windows VM running on a headless proxmox host that I remote into with Parsec. I had to scrap and remake the VM a few times in the beginning while figuring everything out but the VM has been going strong without breaking for around 1.5 years now.

KiLoB0 ,

I used to use my VM a lot for gaming. Unfortunately as of late the games I’ve been wanting to play like spectre divide were blocking VM users.

I still think that a gpu passthrough VM is super cool though. I did mine with only one gpu too.

terminhell ,

Two physical drives. Install windows first in one, then Linux on the other. If you don’t do this order windows boot manager will take over and you’ll have to boot Linux from bios.

recarsion OP ,

Will it maybe work if I just unplug my Linux drive during the Win install?

Mambert ,

I’d recommend having the Linux drive unplugged during the windows installation. Windows, for some reason, will install the boot loader in an entirely different drive than what you selected. There’s no question or prompt to prevent this. The only way to easily prevent this is to just have the one drive plugged in.

hades ,

One problem with that is that you will end up with two EFI partitions. This is not supported very well by anything, really, so you will run the risk of Windows messing with the wrong partition anyway.

SteelCorrelation ,

Yep, dual disks with the Windows installation done first is how I did/do it. GRUB/systemd-boot worked just fine from then on, and I am not on Windows 11, so I didn’t get hit with that fuck-up Microsoft did just a few days ago.

Foofighter ,

I’m not using dual boot anymore, but when I did, I always selected the partition from BIOS, which was totally fine for me. Are there arguments against it?

I_Miss_Daniel ,

Only an issue if you don’t disable fast shutdown on Windows. A hibernated system might get surprised if another OS moves files about while it was asleep.

Cosmonaut_Collin ,
@Cosmonaut_Collin@lemmy.world avatar

You make windows sound like a hibernating beast.

Wolf314159 ,

Windows is never going to like an NTFS that has been touched by another OS even if it windows was completely shutdown during that time. Reading the NTFS partition might be okay. But, last I checked none of the Linux drivers could write without windows noticing and fouling things up. If that has changed it would be welcome news to me despite my warning use of windows.

If windows (and to a lesser extent that other OS) came bundled with some ability to mount, read, and write filesystems popular with other operating systems this wouldn’t be such a problem. One shouldn’t have to involve the network stack or 3rd party drivers just to share a partition on the same hardware or a portable drive with a modern file system.

thatsnothowyoudoit ,
@thatsnothowyoudoit@lemmy.ca avatar

Is there a reason you need a dual book instance instead of a VM or even WINE?

Unless you need direct access to hardware and if you have enough RAM, you can probably avoid dual booting altogether.

recarsion OP ,

I exhausted the WINE route, some games I want to play don’t work with Proton no matter how much you tweak (the first time I’m running into this in a few years) as well as some additional software. There’s also a driver I need to run that’s technically available on Linux but it’s a reverse engineered solution developed by one guy so who knows if it’s gonna keep working.

superkret , (edited )

developed by one guy so who knows if it’s gonna keep working.

If that scares you, don’t look too far behind the curtain on any open source project.

recarsion OP ,

Fair point, xkcd was right xkcd.com/2347/

superkret ,

All my machines are running a distro maintained since 1993 by one guy who’s slowly running out of money.
But the beauty of open source is: If there’s demand for something, other devs will pick up the project, or develop a replacement.

pbjamm ,
@pbjamm@beehaw.org avatar

Dwarf Fortress runs fine in Linux. Are you telling me there are other video games?!?

SteelCorrelation ,

Others have answered your dual-booting question pretty well. However, along the lines of “minimal” Windows, it’s not generally recommended to fuck with the system as that can break things. There are scripts that can strip a lot of the problems, though. I can’t remember any off the top of my head.

As for not requiring an account, I have old ISOs of Win11 and Win10 where the unplugging my ethernet cable trick gets me around signing into a Microsoft account. Not sure if it works on the ISO you get from Microsoft now, however. And if you have built-in WiFi, I think there’s a way to disable it in the command prompt before you install.

Edit: Win10 is going to hit EOL in the near future. I am going to use it until then. It’s got a lot fewer concerns (for me) than Win11, unless Microsoft keeps filtering Win11 shit into it.

Kekin ,
@Kekin@lemy.lol avatar

Getting a second drive just for windows I think is a good approach. If you were to do so, it’s important that you remove all other drives while installing windows, otherwise the Windows installer will put its boot files into whatever existing EFI partition it finds.

Then using something like github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat you should be good to go with a relatively clean setup.

To have a local account, I use Rufus to setup the usb installer in a way that it automatically creates the local account, and it can also disable the secure boot and tpm requirements from the installer if you want. Though I think rufus is a windows program only. I know there’s the “OOBE” approach for the local account, but I haven’t done that before. That could be an option too

JackGreenEarth ,

I put windows 11 live on a £20 USB drive, and it hasn’t messed with my Linux install at all

bufalo1973 ,
@bufalo1973@lemmy.ml avatar

Having another PC with minimum requirements only for Windows?

ininewcrow ,
@ininewcrow@lemmy.ca avatar

Swappable hard drives

I have a ThinkPad with easy access to the hard drive. It’s one screw, remove a small panel and slide out the hard drive, slide in a new hard drive and reinstall the panel and screw. It all takes about a minute.

I have a drive for my Linux setup and another for windows.

I gave up setting up dual boot setups because I’m not as skilled or capable and I’ve lost entire setups in the past due to updates and changes and it was constantly frustrating for me. So I figured that just swapping hard drives was the easiest for me. No configuration, no changes and neither OS can interfere with one another.

I use my Linux as my daily driver for everything and windows when I need something from windows. I only ever use windows maybe once a month or once every second month. I spend more time regularly updating windows than in actually using it.

stargazingpenguin ,

You can (at least the last time I ran an install) get both 10 and 11 installed without a Microsoft account, 11 just requires this process to do it. If you have an old ISO of 11 around it should allow a local account if you don’t connect to the internet, but they apparently patched that out now.

0x0 ,

If you insist on dual-boot: two separate physical drives.

Otherwise: use linux with a windows vm.

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.

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.

Nomecks ,

Get a second pc and a kvm switch

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.

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!

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