There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

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.

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!

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As far as I know, that only stops out of date versions of grub that have a certain vulnerability from running that would allow escaping Secure Boot.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

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

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).

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!

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

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.

lurch ,

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

Quintus ,
@Quintus@lemmy.ml avatar

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

massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

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.

NutWrench ,
@NutWrench@lemmy.ml avatar

I’ve got two separate drives. Linux Mint on an SSD and Windows 10 on an older, mechanical drive. Leave the Windows drive alone. Make the Linux drive the first drive in your BIOS boot order, with the option to boot to Windows as your second drive.

If your GRUB menu doesn’t show the Windows drive yet, run “sudo update-grub” to detect it. When your reboot, the bootloader should show both options.

data1701d ,
@data1701d@startrek.website avatar

Like others have said, I just use two drives, and I can boot into Windows with GRUB.

However, these days, I just do a VM with GPU passthrough. (I installed a second graphics card in my PC just for this.)

Kazumara ,

Using modern UEFI booting with a shared ESP and grub has worked just fine for me in the last 10 years. os-prober has always just found the Windows install and generated the necessary boot entry for grub.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •