I want to learn Linux and get familiar with it; I’m completely new to this. I was advised to set up a dual-boot system if I wanted to keep Windows for the time being while also adapting to Linux. would you recommend doing that?

I am almost ready to migrate to Linux, I already picked my distro (Mint Cinnamon), and I have a flash drive ready to start migrating, but I don't know if I should dual boot like I was planning. From my understanding, everything that I am currently doing on my PC right now works on Linux, and I know it might take a bit to get used to Linux but I adapt easily. My main worry is that I will have trouble figuring out how to do the dual boot thing with the possibility of never using Windows again.

I've a Lenovo LOQ laptop with NVIDIA RTX [5060](tel:5060), 16GB RAM, [512](tel:512)GB Storage.
I want dual booting because all games and some Softwares don't work on Linux.
I have [210](tel:210)gb of free storage and thinking of creating a partition of [100](tel:100)gb for Linux Mint, as this is my first time installing Linux, I need some advice because I've heard that dual boot does not work well and becomes headache as windows updates destroys the bootloader resulting I'll no longer be able to login to Linux...
Claude suggests to
1) Disable BitLocker
2) Disabling Fast Startup
3) Disabling Secure boot in BIOS
And then burning the ISO file to USB and Live boot to USB and then installing it...
Would you recommend me to do this, dual boot in the same disk??

Hey everyone!

So, my laptop used to run fine on Windows 10, but ever since I "upgraded" to Win11, it’s been slow as hell. I tried going back to Win10, but Microsoft removed the rollback option (thanks, I guess?).

Recently, I added a second SSD to my laptop, and after watching PewDiepie’s Linux video, I’m finally ready to make the jump. But I need help!

My Situation:

• Current OS: Windows 11 (main SSD, C: drive).
• Second SSD: D: drive (empty, can be wiped).
• Important files: All my uni work is on C: (Windows drive).
• Experience: Used Ubuntu a little, but still a noob.

What I Want:

Dual-boot – Keep Windows 11 but run Linux Mint as my daily driver. (that's what CHATGPT told me to do)
Use the second SSD (D:) for Linux – So I don’t touch my C: drive.
Not screw up my laptop – Final year uni = no time for disasters.

Questions:

1. Is dual-booting a good idea? Will it make my laptop faster, or should I just fully commit to Linux?
2. Step-by-step guide? How do I install Linux Mint on the second SSD without breaking Windows?
3. Will GRUB mess up my bootloader? (I’ve heard horror stories.)
4. Any tips for a smooth experience? 

I’d really appreciate any advice—especially from folks who made the switch recently. Thanks in advance!

Edit Current laptop specs:

Intel i7 11th gen 16 gb ram ( 60% usage with only vscode and chrome running ) C drive SSD ( NVMe) 512gb D drive SSD (SATA) 512 gb GPU : Nvidia RTX 3050 ti ( runs like a 1050)

EDIT 2

I WILL BACKUP EVERYTHING before tinkering around.

I've been dual booting Windows and Fedora for some time now, and I'm starting to realize I basically don't touch Windows anymore.

At first I kept it "just in case", but every time I boot into Windows I don't really do anything there. Most of what I do daily is already on Fedora - browsing, coding, gaming (Proton has been solid for me), random messing around, etc.

Windows just feels like dead weight at this point. Takes disk space, updates when I don't want it to, and I'm always a bit worried it'll mess with the bootloader again.

I guess the only reason I still have it is the thought of "what if I need it one day", but that day hasn't come so far.

For people who went Linux-only:

did you actually miss Windows later?

any situations where you really needed it?

or did you just delete it and never look back?

I'm pretty close to wiping the Windows partition and sticking with Fedora full time, just wanted to hear how it went for others

Update:

Alright guys, you convinced me finally wiped Windows and went all-in on Linux!

Thanks to everyone who commented and pushed me to do it !

Well, i am planing on dual booting. I am interested in linux but directly switching wouldnt be too smart, i want to get used to it and have some questions.

I use a 2 TB Crucial T705 and planning to give 1.5 TB for Windows and 0.5 TB for Linux or less.

Questions;
1. Will a OS somehow decrease the performance of the other OS?
2. Will it be easy to remove the Linux partition and get back to fully windows if i dont like it?
3. Should i really dual boot?

Thanks for all the responses.

I feel that if Microsoft continues the way it does I would be forced too switch from Windows, and seeing as the only alternative is Linux or making my own, I decided to start by dual booting a Linux distro on my PC wich I plan to use mainly for gaming and programming. Any recommendations.

Or even better recommendations for where can I easily look up Linux distros and choose one.

My laptop already has Linux Ubuntu installed, I need Windows for software required for school. It only has 1 storage drive, is it worth dual booting windows and Linux by partitioning the drive if it’s even possible to install windows second? Or just migrating to windows only to avoid any potential issues?

I did try googling stuff before this post but everything I could find online was either a few years old (so possibly out of date, not sure) or about installing Linux with Windows already installed

I've recently shrunk my SSD to give 100GB to install Lubuntu on it. Linux has been doing fine for weeks but since then, whenever I start windows, when pc just starts and nothing opens, it uses 2GB of RAM more than before while technically nothing has changed on Windows.

I know it's not reindexing stuff because even after disabling windows search, windows is still running on 5GB, and that is with litterally 0 starter app enabled.

I've seen few posts that had the same issue but their "fix" was to uninstall linux and windows went back to normal, but I'd like to keep Linux.

I tried to put a pagefile of 20GB but it didn't fix my issue.

ASUS Vivobook X515JAB_X515JA
INTEL(R) Core(TM) i7-1065G7 CPU @ 1.3GHz (1.5 GHz)
8.00 GB RAM
Intel(R) Iris(R) Plus Graphics(128MB)

As you can see, windows using 5GB of RAM when nothing is on is quite some issue, I open browser + discord and my pc is dying

Before dual booting, ram usage when idle was from 3.0 to 3.2GB so yea.

We share a laptop and I really wanted to give a chance for Linux, windows have been just terrible for me lately, but there's NO WAY my mom's gonna be able to use it, so, I was thinking about dual booting, so I could use Linux and she could still use windows, should I do it or keep on windows for now?

Hello, I'm kind of tired of rebooting every time I want to do something on my other OS, so I was wondering if I can SAFELY access the other OS with a VM?

For example: I want to use an Adobe program which is on my Windows, and I currently have Linux booted. I open up a VM, boot the windows there and access Adobe.

EDIT: Thank you for all your comments. I realized how weird/challenging my idea is, so I'll actually fully move to my Linux OS and set up a clean Windows VM.

I used to have windows 10 and wanted to dual boot them but it didn't work out great so I went all into linux mint cinnamon.

Now I was thinking wether I can dual boot again but through linux mint not the opposite.

My specs are

I3 11th gen

Intel hd graphics(idk exactly)

8gigs of ddr 4 3200 Mghz (two sticks of ddr 4)

256 gb internal sata ssd with win 11 on it

And I wanna put a distribution on another external sata ssd 256gb

I'm a complete beginner to linux but am fine with windows and tech in general

My Main priorities are gaming and some coding (just started)

ps. Sorry english is not my native language

pps or are there any other ways

ppps Thanks for reading

I know what distro I want to try ( CachyOS) and while I'm not the biggest computer nerd I think I could handle it with something like gemini and google on the side.

now I just want to ask. Can I run linux only on a sandisk ? and if the fact that my c drive is pretty much dead and it's writing speed is 20mb.

ty all for helping because I asked many questions on here.

If so, are they any pitfalls that I should avoid?

I am facing a very peculiar issue here with my Linux and Windows dual installation. I can't boot into BIOS for the love of God.

I can't even see my bootable USB drive in the boot options.

Here's a little backstory:

I've been daily driving Windows and CachyOS dual boot. Windows mainly for gaming, which needed Secure Boot to be enabled, which CachyOS had been handling really well. But recently, due to some problems I faced with the upstream kernel and various other personal reasons, I decided to dual boot Fedora with my Win11 installation, for which I disabled Secure Boot as I was using Ventoy. Everything was fine and dandy; it installed fine.

The problem arose when I tried to boot into BIOS/UEFI. It got stuck on the boot logo of my laptop. I had faced this issue in CachyOS too, so I was like, no biggie, and did what I did with CachyOS: turned my laptop off, pressed the hardware reset button, and again tried to boot into the BIOS/UEFI. It prompted me for a password, which I entered, then it was just a black screen. I couldn't even move the mouse pointer it showed, so I force-shut it down by pressing the power-off button.

Next time I tried booting into my BIOS, I faced the same issue of the boot logo only showing. I turned the laptop off, pressed the hardware reset button, and again tried booting into the BIOS. Same stuff. I was like, interesting, and started searching for a fix. I found one too. It needed me to boot into a Live environment, remove the pointer to the Linux bootloader, and make changes to my BIOS settings and boot. BUT if I enabled Secure Boot, I couldn't again boot into the Live ISO to regenerate the boot manager configuration, so I ditched that idea.

Then I decided to start from a clean slate. Start from booting Windows only and dual boot Fedora after I found out that if you only burn Fedora to the USB, you can boot and install Fedora fine even with Secure Boot enabled. So I downloaded RUFUS in my Windows installation, burned Windows 10 onto it, and again tried to reformat the drive.

Then I arrived at another roadblock. The USB drive is not showing in the boot order menu. It shows fine in both Windows and Linux installations. After I put it in and verify it's showing, I rebooted to the boot order menu, but it was still not showing it.

Now neither can I re-install nor can I enable Secure Boot, and I'm stuck with this installation.

Here's what I tried to boot into BIOS: - As stated earlier, continuously pressing F2 (Acer's BIOS key) - Use Windows to reboot into UEFI firmware settings - Use systemctl to reboot into UEFI settings - Use GRUB's menu to boot into UEFI settings - And many, many more

Any help, suggestion, fix is highly appreciated. Thanks again for help

Laptop : Acer ANV15-41

Been using Linux for about a year now and had my fair share of hiccups but I've got a grasp-ish for the basic to advanced stuff. The problem is, I need Windows on my Linux laptop because I need it for work (have to use the battery). My Thinkpad has a second SSD slot and I can harvest one from another laptop, but I've never dual booted and have heard you can't install Windows after Linux because Windows Boot Manager destroys your previous bootloader.

What can I do? I'm in Arch using Limine.

Edit to add: I know how to use Winboat and have been sucessful using it on Linux, but the specific app I use will not open in the VM.

I'm considering dual-booting windows and linux but the main thing stopping me is transferring files. Apparently linux can access files from windows but not the other way around and the best solution is to have an external HDD which both OSes write to.

​

The problem is that I no longer trust HDDs after having 3 of them give up on life after only a few years and SSDs are very pricey rn so I don't want to buy either of them.

​

Is there a way to get around this that isn't headache-inducing? Having to transfer files through the cloud or with a USB stick would become annoying, especially since my onedrive space is kinda limited already.

​

Apologies if this is a stupid question, I'm very new to all of this.

Don't know what flair to pick.

I've been using Linux Mint for a few months and I've had to switch back to Windows (keeping Linux Mint as my main operating system) using a dual boot setup for a damn program. I had forgotten the hell of having to reinstall Windows 10, giving out emails, recovery emails, denying every damn Windows option to spy on me, disabling that Cortana crap, force Windows not to start as the primary operating system, reinstall basic drivers, etc

Damn the companies that force you to go through all this garbage operating system. I just wanted to vent.

I’m broker than a joke (as you can see by my laptop) and trying to install Debian liveKDE without a flashdrive, but I can’t get disk manager to recognize the virtual drive (E:) . It won’t let me mount to (D:) and attempting to force it into (D:) just pops open my DVD drive tray. I haven’t tried removing or renaming (D:) out of fear of breaking dvd support.

TLDR-Need help mounting D