I’m a regular user of Linux systems but apart from a couple of test Ubuntu installs many years ago they’ve always been containers or VMs with no DE which I can throw away when I break them. The Steam Deck showcasing how far Wine/Proton has come combined with Windows being Windows has given me the push; I’ve made a Mint live USB and it’s running beautifully on my desktop. I come to you, the masters, with questions before I hit install:
- What do you recommend I do about disk partitions? I’m keeping a Windows install for the few things that demand it, does Windows still occasionally destroy Linux partitions? Do I need separate partitions for data and OS? Is it straightforward to add additional distros as new partitions or is that asking for trouble?
- Is disk encryption straightforward? And is that likely to upset the Windows partition?
- Is cloud storage sync straightforward? It’s my off-site backup solution on Android and Windows (using Cryptomator with Dropbox, Google Drive, etc) but I don’t think that many providers have Linux clients. Is something like rclone recommended?
- Should I just use apt to install software? I know there’s some kind of graphical package manager (synaptic?), does that use apt under the covers or is it separate? Is it recommended to install something like Flathub too?
- Any other pearls of wisdom? How do I keep everything tidy? Any warnings about what not to do? Should I use a particular terminal emulator or Firefox fork?
To make life easier for yourself, I’d highly recommend running Linux on a separate drive. The Linux distribution installers I’ve used will install the bootloader on whatever drive you choose to install on, but the windows installer will use the storage controller’s port ordering to choose which drive to install on.
Your best bet is to simply disconnect the Windows drive when installing Linux and to disconnect the Linux drive when installing Windows, then just use the BIOS boot selection screen to choose which OS to boot into.
You can add your Windows drive to Grub and you might be able to add your Linux distro to your Windows bootloader, but keeping them entirely separate is probably best.
I vaguely remember from trying this many years ago that if you install Windows first it will try and wipe everything, and if you install Linux second it will leave Windows alone, and you can then go straight to grub on every boot and choose Windows or Linux. Is that still the case?
Kinda, if you install Linux first, WIndows will not be able to see the space occupied by the Ubuntu partition, so it will not try to fill it, but I would still go with another disk, since the most common problems of dual boot will not occur. And is easier to setup, just install windows in one disk and Ubuntu in another, then you can change the boot by the BIOS menu.
Good to know, thanks