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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.

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!

JackGreenEarth ,

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

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

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.

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.

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).

Nomecks ,

Get a second pc and a kvm switch

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.

bufalo1973 ,
@bufalo1973@lemmy.ml avatar

Having another PC with minimum requirements only for Windows?

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.)

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.

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.

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