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.

  • Balinares@pawb.socialEnglish
    0·
    8 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.

  • Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    8 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.

  • terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    8 months ago

    Two physical drives. Install windows first in one, then Linux on the other. If you don’t do this order windows boot manager will take over and you’ll have to boot Linux from bios.

      • hades@lemm.ee
        0·
        8 months ago

        One problem with that is that you will end up with two EFI partitions. This is not supported very well by anything, really, so you will run the risk of Windows messing with the wrong partition anyway.

      • Mambert@beehaw.org
        0·
        8 months ago

        I’d recommend having the Linux drive unplugged during the windows installation. Windows, for some reason, will install the boot loader in an entirely different drive than what you selected. There’s no question or prompt to prevent this. The only way to easily prevent this is to just have the one drive plugged in.

        • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          0·
          8 months ago

          Yeah, I had to disconnect all my SATA HDs to stop the Windows installer from shitting all over them.

          I’d be worried about Windows updates doing the same thing now, after the the recent glitch that broke bootloaders.

          • Mambert@beehaw.org
            0·
            8 months ago

            It’s common for windows updates to delete boot parts or Linux, corrupt grub, etc. That is only when windows and Linux are installed on the same drive together. I have yet to see Windows corruping Linux on a separate drive entirely. Never happened to me despite how much I mess up my grub updates distro hop.

    • SteelCorrelation@lemmy.one
      0·
      8 months ago

      Yep, dual disks with the Windows installation done first is how I did/do it. GRUB/systemd-boot worked just fine from then on, and I am not on Windows 11, so I didn’t get hit with that fuck-up Microsoft did just a few days ago.

    • Foofighter@discuss.tchncs.de
      0·
      8 months ago

      I’m not using dual boot anymore, but when I did, I always selected the partition from BIOS, which was totally fine for me. Are there arguments against it?

      • I_Miss_Daniel@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        8 months ago

        Only an issue if you don’t disable fast shutdown on Windows. A hibernated system might get surprised if another OS moves files about while it was asleep.

        • Wolf314159@startrek.website
          0·
          8 months ago

          Windows is never going to like an NTFS that has been touched by another OS even if it windows was completely shutdown during that time. Reading the NTFS partition might be okay. But, last I checked none of the Linux drivers could write without windows noticing and fouling things up. If that has changed it would be welcome news to me despite my warning use of windows.

          If windows (and to a lesser extent that other OS) came bundled with some ability to mount, read, and write filesystems popular with other operating systems this wouldn’t be such a problem. One shouldn’t have to involve the network stack or 3rd party drivers just to share a partition on the same hardware or a portable drive with a modern file system.

  • thatsnothowyoudoit@lemmy.ca
    0·
    8 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·
      8 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.

      • superkret@feddit.org
        0·
        8 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.

      • pbjamm@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        8 months ago

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

  • Kekin@lemy.lol
    0·
    8 months ago

    Getting a second drive just for windows I think is a good approach. If you were to do so, it’s important that you remove all other drives while installing windows, otherwise the Windows installer will put its boot files into whatever existing EFI partition it finds.

    Then using something like https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat you should be good to go with a relatively clean setup.

    To have a local account, I use Rufus to setup the usb installer in a way that it automatically creates the local account, and it can also disable the secure boot and tpm requirements from the installer if you want. Though I think rufus is a windows program only. I know there’s the “OOBE” approach for the local account, but I haven’t done that before. That could be an option too

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
    0·
    8 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.

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    8 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·
      8 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.

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    8 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 gave up setting up dual boot setups because I’m not as skilled or capable and I’ve lost entire setups in the past due to updates and changes and it was constantly frustrating for me. So I figured that just swapping hard drives was the easiest for me. No configuration, no changes and neither OS can interfere with one another.

    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.

  • SteelCorrelation@lemmy.one
    0·
    8 months ago

    Others have answered your dual-booting question pretty well. However, along the lines of “minimal” Windows, it’s not generally recommended to fuck with the system as that can break things. There are scripts that can strip a lot of the problems, though. I can’t remember any off the top of my head.

    As for not requiring an account, I have old ISOs of Win11 and Win10 where the unplugging my ethernet cable trick gets me around signing into a Microsoft account. Not sure if it works on the ISO you get from Microsoft now, however. And if you have built-in WiFi, I think there’s a way to disable it in the command prompt before you install.

    Edit: Win10 is going to hit EOL in the near future. I am going to use it until then. It’s got a lot fewer concerns (for me) than Win11, unless Microsoft keeps filtering Win11 shit into it.

  • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    8 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.

  • some_random_nick@lemmy.world
    0·
    8 months ago

    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.

  • data1701d (He/Him)@startrek.websiteEnglish
    0·
    8 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.)