this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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Looking for a distro to dual boot with Win 11 (lemmy.world)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I currently have a win 11 machine and would like to dual boot with Linux. Looking at some of the different options, it seems many aren't recommended for dual booting. Are there any that are?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Always dual booted Linux (ubuntu/mint/manjaro/endeavor) and windows (8/10/11) without issues. I think windows published an update (happened only once if I remember correctly) that wiped Linux partitions so yeah, it can happen, but to me that has the same chance of windows breaking itself because of an update (same with Linux). Honestly just take a backup and try whatever distro you like. If you just want to see what Linux is like you can use virtualbox on windows and install it on a virtual machine.

Dual booting is hard to setup the first time so you may want to have another pc with a guide and a forum ready for help. To me the hardest part was how to understand the partitions for swap/home/root/efi etc. but newer Linux installers have a wizard that usually does everything

Things to remember if you decide to dual boot:

  • disable secure boot in the bios
  • disable fast boot (I think that's the name) or windows will "lock" the disks on hibernate
  • keep your distro ISO image on a USB key with Ventoy installed to quickly restore any issue you may encounter. If windows overwrites the boot partition you can easily restore in 5/10 minutes without losing anything so don't be worried about that