Just buy a new SSD to install Linux on. If you decide to switch back just plug the old one in.
this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2024
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If you want to test out Linux, try running a virtual machine instead. There are a few good free software programs to do this. VirtualBox used to be a good option. It's a free and harmless way to dive into Linux.
So I will get some flack from this I am sure but my daily drivers since about 2004 are Linux I have always had a Mac laptop up to a few years ago in that time frame and Windows work laptops.
Honestly Windows 11 has a lot of nice creature features that KDE has had for a while and with WSL I can use a lot of my Linux commands. Can tell you how many times I have used egrep for things along with having native ssh built in. Powershell is a very powerful shell language especially if you want to go down the .Net rabbit hole but that’s not usually needed
Still my main desktop is Debian stable with distrobox for apps I need more modern versions of. But it’s not hard to switch back and forth
If you're nervous about the switch consider dual-booting. Then you're not fully committed to the switch & you can have your old Windows system back whenever you want it.
Main steps are:
- Run a defrag on your Windows machine to physically consolidate all your Windows data to one area.
- Break that partition into two (Linux will go one the new empty side)
- Install Linux from a USB as normal, but don't choose to wipe your drive completely. Choose a manual option instead where you specifically indicate your intended Linux partition from above.
- Optional: Once installation is complete you can set up another partition to hold files which can be available to both OSs.
- Boot into Linux & define the remaining unused space in the Linux partition as a new NTFS partition & give it a name which makes it obvious what it is (i.e. "sharedspace")
- Then boot into Windows and move the existing data you'd like to share between OSs here (work documents, movies, music, etc.)
Some useful links:
- Video on setting up a dual boot
- Howtogeek used to have a great walkthrough for doing this but I'm getting a 404 error when I try to follow the link now :(
- Optional: Setting up Linux symlinks to point to the shared space partition
Dual booting is more complex and should be avoided if possible. If someone doesn't like Linux they can just go back to Windows. I dual booted for years and I can say it was totally useless.
I would argue that it is better to have two separate drives for the installation. It simplifies things for non tech savvy people, and I believe Windows has less of an opportunity to mess with your linux install, such as messing with the efi partition.
THIS all fucking day for new and even experienced users. Setting up a dual boot is fairly easy. But the moment you decide that you just need Windows (mostly new/non-tech users) and delete the Linux partition. Shit will break booting and lead to so much panic and/or frustration just getting Windows booting again. And that ignores the additional fuck-ups that can happen with just making a small mistake doing anything with partitions no matter the OS. It is much less frustrating to just disconnect the second drive in a desktop (or just format the drive and have as a data drive). Or to just swap one drive for another in a laptop with one drive bay/slot. Opening a laptop might be annoying depending on the model.
But at least your data and OS won't be lost. Lots of people can understand using a screwdriver and spudgers while watching a video and some care. But lots of video and written guides for complex software can be worse. Lots of my frustrations with Linux guides over the years has to do with some steps being just left out due to the person(s) showing or writing it just assume certain steps as being super "obvious" or "common sense." Though some folks are at least good at pre-facing stuff as assuming certain levels of knowledge. So it is easier to know that I might need to also research whatever they mentioned.
And if someone is experienced, it is still good to keep your OSes on physically different drives. Reduce the amount of problems that can come from a drive going bad and taking both (or however many) OSes down together. Of course backups are to be made for reasons that include a drive failing. But shit happens, and minimizing impact and the work needed to get everything working again is always a good idea. It is also nice to know that if you get the itch to distro-hop, you can just nuke the one drive without worry as much as you want. Keep your "I need to know this won't be impacted" drive safe, and your play drive liquid.
Same here. I installed Linux Mint on my internal D: drive and left my Windows C: drive completely untouched. Then, I changed my boot order in bios to boot from drive D: This lets you play with Linux without messing with the bootloader on your Windows drive, or fiddling with partitions.
Once I decided to keep Linux, I modified the D: drive bootloader ("sudo update-grub") so it would show both drives when I booted from D: Now I can boot into either OS without having to change the boot order in BIOS.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Video on setting up a dual boot
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Do a dual boot, that's what I did. If after some time you feel like the windows partition is unnecessary, delete it. If after deletion it suddenly seems to become necessary, it is always possible to reinstall windows, there are tutorials online on how to do that.
You can always reinstall Windows and the license is registered to the motherboard so it'll be fine.
You could alternatively buy a hard drive and keep your entire windows system for later just in case. :)
I would buy a SSD
When I first wanted to try Linux out I made a small 50gb partition for it. the logic was that this was the size of just one game and it was an entire operating system, so I wasn't losing much. As I continued to use Linux I kept expanding that partition to correspond with the priority I gave the OS.
It has been my experience that it is a bigger pain in the neck to install Windows. Something you can try is practice it in a virtual machine using something like VirtualBox.
Use this tool to debloat your windows: https://github.com/builtbybel/privatezilla , also, I heard that setting your region as English (International) during installation comes with less bloat-ware installed?
Also, lookup tutorials on how to Dual Boot.
Don't use "debloater" versions as that is a violation of the TOS and can create significant issues.
To install Windows just write it to a USB and then boot from the USB. Follow the on screen instructions from there
If you feel comfortable swapping out the drives on your computer that would be the easiest way. You can buy a cheap ssd to install linux on it. If you really hate it you can just switch back to the windows drive. This also helps you avoid dual booting.
And if you don't, you could just boot a live USB of Linux and some installers are capable of repartitioning your drive for dual boot.
But there's always a small amount of risk to this, but I've never had an issue in my 25 years of doing it.
You got a lot of responses, here’s some good ones:
@[email protected] wrote a good post that explains how to make an install usb from your existing windows
@[email protected] made a post about the wipe and reinstall method using a third party source and activation method
If you choose either of those ways, make a backup using the windows backup wizard. No matter how you choose to reinstall windows, having that backup lets you save your files and settings. Always have a backup!
I’m not gonna link them, but you got a lot of posts about using a second drive to install windows so that its update process doesn’t remove your ability to boot into Linux. Many people do that and there’s nothing wrong with it.
I think it’s better to let windows update mess up your bootloader and learn how to fix it (it’s always incredibly easy but the process varies slightly depending on your distribution). There’s no guarantee that windows update won’t mess up bootloaders on drives it isn’t installed on.
If I were you, and I could look into the future of what’s gonna work, speaking from a couple decades of experience, I’d make a windows install media or two, make a backup or two and pick a distribution to try off a live usb first then if I liked it, I’d install it dual boot so I could switch back to windows just by picking it when the computer starts up.
Other answers got you covered, but please back up your personal data before doing anything big, even if you are feeling confident
Story time, I once was reinstalling windows and I could not remember which drive had all my important data on it and I was getting ready to go out. But windows xp installer was on the disk selection screen and I couldn't remember which disk was windows and which was my data. I said fuck it I'll figure it out later. I get home and my monitor is off. I jam enter a bunch of times to wake it up. Woops. Installed windows on my data drive.
Since you're not computer savvy, I really think you should watch some YouTube videos on how to dual boot linux with windows. That way you can keep windows without having to reinstall it if you ever wanna go back.
Yes, you should look for hand-holding tutorials. I don't mean that to slight you. The first time I installed Linux was way before the internet was fast or full of easy to access info and way before most had access to a secondary device (like a phone) when hitting a roadblock.
It booted to a text prompt. I had no idea how to login (probably root / root or root / password or root / [blank], but htf would I know that?) so I erased and reverted back.
The point is, if you have very little experience, there're tons of resources to help you out. Search them out. Lean on folks here for help when needed. You'll be ok.
Install: easy.
Seeing how much more annoying it is after using Linux: hard.
ESPECIALLY if you have gotten used to a fancy window manager or custom hotkeys... the amount of times i go "mod+q .... oh, right... alt+f4"
Swear, although I'm more of a "mod+shift+q" kind of guy
i use a custom kill script with overrides such as dont kill firefox, and properly kill discord. then $mod+shift+q to use the standard kill as a fallback
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