I’m looking to finally use Linux properly and I’m planning to dual boot my laptop. There’s enough storage to go around, and while I’m comfortable messing around I’d rather not have to run and buy a new device before school while fixing my current one.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VaIgbTOvAd0

This was the general guide I was planning to follow, just with KDE Plasma (or another KDE). I was going to keep windows the default, and boot into Linux as needed when I had time to learn and practice.

I assume it should be the near similar process for KDE Plasma?

I’m ok with things going wrong with the Linux install, but I’d like to keep the Windows install as safe as possible.

  • Pantherina@feddit.de
    13·
    1 year ago

    I would now say never on the same disk. A shame because many laptops only have one slot. But Windows 11 may do anything and you never know what happens after a “Windows update”

    • UnPassive@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      Twice after a windows update I lost my bootloader menu and my laptop would boot straight into Windows. After the second time I just removed Windows. Some investigation revealed that “Windows does not support dual booting” which I believe translates to “we will ocationally cause issues that a beginner would struggle to fix in the hopes of them staying on Windows.” Just a theory. Separate drives for sure if you can. No idea if they still do this as it’s been years since I dual booted

      • babeuh@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 year ago

        They still do it (at least they did a couple months ago) and Windows even likes to erase or replace linux bootloaders when on separate drive in my experience.

        Annoyed me enough to remove Windows too. I’ll never install that anywhere again

      • Pantherina@feddit.de
        1·
        1 year ago

        Yes its horrible. This may happen during their weird updates.

        Interestingly you can swap drives Windows 11 and Fedora, it does “repair” bullshit at the beginning but works.

        If you never update windows (which is so horrible that you actually need to consider that) you can first install it, shrink it and install Linux.

    • Otter@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      41·
      1 year ago

      I’ve seen people talk about Windows messing up the Linux install. Have there been cases where the windows install itself was messed up after an update (or is it straight up “you never know” and anything can happen)

      I only have one slot, and I’d prefer to not have to carry around a USB or external drive if I can avoid it. I’m ok with having to redo the Linux install/setup, and it might be nice practice anyway. But I definitely need to have windows running and stable for schoolwork.

      • Ludrol@szmer.infoEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        When I was using windows 10 + linux mint for over the 2 years I never got a boot problem from windows update. You just need a separate EFI partition for linux boot loader.

        My Partitions: Windows boot C: D: Windows recovery or some other crap Linux EFI for grub / (Root directory) Swap

        I don’t bother with separate /home because I never know how much I will fill up my disk

      • Pantherina@feddit.de
        1·
        1 year ago

        So for me USB sticks dont even work on Secureboot, so you need to disable that.

        Then you can shrink your windows partition and install Fedora or something in the rest. Only use the unallocated space.

        I actually removed the windows Bootloader manually, the IT simply removed the Linux bootloader instead, lol.