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What is the most painless and minimal way to dual boot these days? (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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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.

UPDATE: I ended up going with a regular old dual boot using Windows 10 iot LTSC - there's a few games I wanted to run and a driver as well so I chose to install directly on hardware as opposed to a VM. I created the install media using Ventoy, and UNPLUGGED EVERY OTHER DRIVE during installation except the one Windows was supposed to come on. Afterwards I had to boot in with a live Linux USB (the nice thing about Ventoy is that you can write multiple ISOs to your USB so it came in handy) to manually install rEFInd onto the original EFI partition that my Linux install uses, then I just had to set up the correct boot order in UEFI and everything is working. I also had to fuck around on the boot partition and with efibootmgr to remove all traces of grub so things don't get tangled up which was a bit scary but things are working perfectly now.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Windows on external USB drive, disconnected after each use

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

For minimal Windows, there's Tiny11 (german).

My setup (partially in planning):

  • a small box/notebook for casual computing/gaming on desktop.
  • One beefy box hooked to the tv and controller for RPG & co.
  • Remote-desktop to the beefy box for modding & some games. Cable connected, wifi makes remotedesktop slow.

I'm playing with the idea to use Windows on the (not yet completed) beefy box, since some modding tools and multiplayer games don't work on linux.

This setup avoids hassles with dual boot/virtualization. And you don't have your beefy box running 24/7.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Windows 11 iot enterprise + opensuse tumbleweed kde works flawlessly

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I use a Windows VM in whatever lightweight linux OS I'm fucking with at the time. All my files and stuff are on a local server so I can swap distros easily if I want.

Usually it runs ok, can game, and I dont have to deal with restarting a bunch of stuff. I've been using CachyOS, not sure if I like it yet

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I have Windows EFI and Linux EFI partitions on same srive. Secureboot is set to load Linux EFI Grub, a chainloader entry in Grub will handoff to Windows boot loader if I choose that. it has stayed intact for 7 years this way without windows knowing or touching the other EFI partition. But separate drives is probably even better

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Tiny10 on a VM

I'm sluggishly in the middle of the same thing.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (2 children)

My aproach was to use two drives. I had Windows on the first, then disconected it and installed Linux on the second. That way I dont have grub and use F11 to open the bios bootloader to select the system I want.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Simple and reliable has a lot to be said for it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Do this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Using modern UEFI booting with a 1GB shared ESP and grub2 has worked just fine for me in the last 8 years. os-prober has always just found the Windows install and generated the necessary boot entry for grub. Windows has never trespassed into the Fedora or Ubuntu folder of the ESP as far as I can tell.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

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.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

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

https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

  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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

On Windows they can't really be used for gaming to my knowledge. However, they are used for the UI

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I like rEFInd

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If I have a new PC with a blank hard drive, what should be the install order?

Windows, then rEFInd, then Linux?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Linux, Win, rEFInd too. Windows is the destructive force here, so rEFInd should always go after it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

It does look like the easiest option so I will definitely use it, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

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).

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Hm this sounds very interesting, it would be pretty convenient, I'll look into it

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Not true as of late

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Does it not? I've seen posts about grub being borked after Windows updates, or was that only on legacy BIOS systems?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

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)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

can report UEFI installs of PopOS and Mint were recently borked by a Win11 update.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

An update borked my eufi setup last year, good riddance, Microsoft.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

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!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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!

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