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.

  • Bisexual_Cookie [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    7 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).

  • thatsnothowyoudoit@lemmy.ca
    0·
    7 months ago

    Is there a reason you need a dual book instance instead of a VM or even WINE?

    Unless you need direct access to hardware and if you have enough RAM, you can probably avoid dual booting altogether.

    • recarsion@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      0·
      7 months ago

      I exhausted the WINE route, some games I want to play don’t work with Proton no matter how much you tweak (the first time I’m running into this in a few years) as well as some additional software. There’s also a driver I need to run that’s technically available on Linux but it’s a reverse engineered solution developed by one guy so who knows if it’s gonna keep working.

      • pbjamm@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        Dwarf Fortress runs fine in Linux. Are you telling me there are other video games?!?

      • superkret@feddit.org
        0·
        7 months ago

        developed by one guy so who knows if it’s gonna keep working.

        If that scares you, don’t look too far behind the curtain on any open source software.

  • JackGreenEarth@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    I put windows 11 live on a £20 USB drive, and it hasn’t messed with my Linux install at all

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    Swappable hard drives

    I have a ThinkPad with easy access to the hard drive. It’s one screw, remove a small panel and slide out the hard drive, slide in a new hard drive and reinstall the panel and screw. It all takes about a minute.

    I have a drive for my Linux setup and another for windows.

    I use my Linux as my daily driver for everything and windows when I need something from windows. I only ever use windows maybe once a month or once every second month. I spend more time regularly updating windows than in actually using it.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
    0·
    7 months ago

    If by “these days” you mean a motherboard that supports UEFI, then it honestly doesn’t matter anymore. Your board controls the boot order, and there isn’t an MBR for Windows to mess with anymore. Just plan out your partitioning careful before hand, and if you plan on using a lot of files in both OS’s, make a plain storage partition that is easily mounted under Windows (NTFS does not count).

    Honestly, aside from a very scant number of apps or games, there isn’t a real need to dual boot anymore. If you can’t run something under Proton or Wine, having a Windows VM will get the job done.

  • YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca
    0·
    7 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!

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
    0·
    7 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.

  • Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    As for the second question: Windows 11 IoT LTSC has yet to be mention here - the only things that can stop you from using it are legality and convenience.

    I’m not sure if W10 has an IoT LTSC version, but W10 LTSC does exist.

  • 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    7 months ago

    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.

    • recarsion@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      0·
      7 months ago

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

      • 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de
        0·
        7 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)

      • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        0·
        7 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.

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    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

    • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      0·
      7 months ago

      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.