I plan to do a pc upgrade very soon. Alongside that I plan to start with Mint or Fedora. Is there any real or big downsides to dual booting ? Aside from the harddrive space lost ?
If I like or really like my time with Mint I would probably switch permanently but I felt like I wanted to test it for a couple of months before making a complete switch.
Im a big 
so that impacts my consideration. Dont really play much multiplayer shooters so I dont have a problem with kernel anticheat games not working.
If you dont know how to unfuck a bootloader after a windows update nukes grub then no dont do it. Also you cant share storage cos ntfs on linux is a fuck and windows will lock ntfs partitions on shutdown and gets weird if it doesn’t unlock it itself. Installing on separate drives isnt even relevant advice anymore since most computers moved from MBR to GPT ages ago unless your bios specifically has legacy mode support.
If nothing I said makes sense then the answer is a very firm no. You cant brick anything but if you dont know what youre doing run with the assumption you may have to wipe the drives so dont do it if you have stuff that isnt backed up or that you arent prepared to lose.
Anticheat is moving to demanding secureboot so dual booting wont even work as a solution and neither will a vm with hardware pass through
I hear some people talk about windows updates but shouldnt that be a non-issue on windows 10 since there are no more upadates for that ? Or am I wrong ?
In theory sure I have a strong feeling you’ll just acquire 20 more headaches and with secureboot anticheat and whispering of tpm 2.0 requirements for anticheat the headaches wont really even solve the problem.
I’ve used linux for about 15 years now and i dont think ive ever experienced a stable dual boot ever that didnt require me to fix grub in some way. The order also matters you install windows first and linux second the other way round will disappear the grub bootloader lel. And with gpt and uefi bios the headaches grow.
Personally im waiting for the industry to change its mind it causes less problems
I’ve been using Linux as my main desktop OS since before 2000 and I second everything said here.
For a second I thought you said nfts. Not my precious ape pictures
Also you cant share storage cos ntfs on linux is a fuck and windows will lock ntfs partitions on shutdown and gets weird if it doesn’t unlock it itself.
You should be able to fix this by turning off safe boot on windows
Use two separate drives to save yourself the headache of working with partitions. The only “headache” I experience is the pc clock will be wrong when I switch OS´s
and if you connect a bluetooth devicw to lets say the windows installation, you need to completly re-sync the device when you switch OS. every sjngle time
The clock thing is because windows sets the system clock (RTC) to local time and Linux typically sets it to UTC. Both can be tweaked to keep time the other way though.
this is also fixable. at least with ubuntu and windows 10 I was able to configure my system in a way that this was permanently solved.
I’m currently dualbooting. I’d definitely recommend putting windows and linux on separate drives if possible. The only issue i had was trying to play games that were on an ntfs drive, you’ll want to install your games on a drive with a linux file system, there are workarounds but its so much easier just using ext4 or btrfs
Yeah Im buying a new SSD alongside my pc upgrade so Im gonna throw linux on that.
As sythas points out it is much easier to have windows and linux on separate physical drives so that you can just use the bios boot order / selection avoiding MBR issues.
Also when you are on linux try to avoid mounting or interacting with the windows NTFS partition. Windows has a tendency to throw a tantrum if it thinks someone touched it’s stuff. If windows hurts itself in it’s confusion then ntfsfix on linux usually sorts it out.
If you don’t absolutely need windows for a specific thing though then there isn’t much point dual booting. Are you really going to keep routinely rebooting your PC for a couple of months? or whenever you need to do something will you take the path of least resistance which will always be windows if that’s what you’re already familiar with… best to use a live usb environment for an hour to test hardware compatibility and see if you like a distro’s vibe then wipe windows and dive in whole heartedly.
Windows updates can sometimes break the bootloader but no problems otherwise
The main downside is that dualboot doesn’t reduce your computer annoyances in any way but adds additional computer annoyances. You still need to service your Windows installation but now you also need to service a whole other OS as well and the two fight occasionally.
How do they fight ? Its not like Windows 10 is getting anymore upgrades that could brick something ? I also dont understand the annoyances part. Not trying to argue its totally possible im missing something.
I plan to mostly use Linux until I likley do a full switch to it in early 2026. By then i will have checked everything that needs to work on Linux and (hopefully) can make a full switch.
They shouldn’t fight as long as you’re using UEFI to boot, which has been required by Microsoft at least since Windows 8. You should not be installing any boot loaders via the MBR method in 2025.
Linux distro installers typically support booting via both BIOS and UEFI (from the same disk image), and will usually install using the mechanism that they were booted with. BIOS boot compatibility should be disabled in the UEFI settings first to ensure the installer and resulting OS boot with UEFI.
I dual-booted for a long time (stopped recently). Since Windows XP. The main downsides are partiton clutter, needing to do updates on two OSes, needing to do peculiar configurations to keep the system clock correct, preventing hibernation, and limiting your filesystem choices to ensure cross-compatibility. Otherwise, it can be useful, but I found myself booting Windows once every 3 months.
I’ve had a windows bluescreen cause irretrievable data loss on a separate Linux drive formatted in BTRFS.
If the purpose is to get a feel for the OS and check your compatibility with it, I’d recommend just running a VM with your distribution of choice on the Windows install
It should prove way less of a headache and youll get your feel of it anyway
I agree with this, but they won’t be able to easily play games that way because VM 3D graphics are weird.
Yeah, use different drives if at all possible. Windows tends to try to nuke the Linux bootloader if they’re on the same drive.
I can’t tell you much about dual boot or gaming but my Outrun 2006 c2c.exe runs flawlessly in Fedora on my 2013 15" MacBook. I find that crazy impressive.
AFAIK it complicates the boot process slightly but doesn’t affect performance
My only problem was caused by windows bullshit. I tried the Bf6 open beta and had to turn on secureboot. It fucked with my graphics card drivers and once I turned it off I had to switch the drivers around again to get good performance on Linux again.
Otherwise, most things Just Work between Steam and other launchers. I’ve noticed some things like worse performance on Nightreign and screen tearing in Silksong even though it has a native Linux version. But otherwise it has been all good.
hey caj here with the most built on hope and dreams setup.
uhh the downsides? besides the months I spent figuring out how to make rEFInd ( a boot manager ) work with secure boot before it was fixed so it could use shim properly, it’s fine, I just… I was a bit… maybe a bit dumb and had to spend several hours waiting for my partitions to resize (on my SSD) so my windows just has windows in it and my linux (endeavourOS) contains some stuff I can’t put into my increasingly filled up hard drive which is almost always connected to it.
overall, I recommend getting separate drives, makes it easier and less anxiety to have to think of how much free space you’ll give to each OS. I recommend rEFInd, but others are fine too I just don’t know how they work. Just be careful and have like… idk, a fully conscious mind when setting up (I didn’t lol).
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Some thoughts from a long time Windows and Linux user:
- I have a dedicated Win10 box for gaming. No shame. I’m too lazy to migrate everything over right now. I use other Linux computers or duel boot to do important tasks, like shitposting on https://chapo.chat/. However the Win10 sunset is pushing the migration up my priority list.
- Duel booting works fine almost all the time. After you finish the install you won’t have to think much about it. Mostly…
- Others have said how Windows likes to mess with Duel Boot systems occasionally. In my experience this happens during Windows Updates, and usually it blows away the boot order. Often I can go into the BIOS and manually choose the Linux partition and fix the boot from there.
- All that said, backups, backups, backups!
- Back up your Windows partition before setup just in case something goes awry.
- Try the LiveUSB environment out first to check compatibility, like WiFi drivers, and get a feel. Many linux distros, including Mint and Fedora, come with a LiveUSB by default.
- Very often distros let you run the installer from inside the Live environment, giving you the benefit of a full desktop GUI, tools, and Internet access during the install. If you have WiFi issues, for example, it’s much easier to fix them in the Live environment and let the Installer bootstrap from there.
- I know Mint LiveUSB comes preinstalled with a bunch of useful programs out the gate. I just fired up the latest Mint liveusb, and the Backup tool lets you save both your Home directory and any software you installed through the Software Manager, which can give you a bit of permanence across restarts before you take the plunge.
