New
#270
Thanks, but don't want a clean install if I can avoid it.
Thanks, but don't want a clean install if I can avoid it.
Gee things have sure changed for the better on this with all the positive talk of Linux and VMware. Microsoft approach to their base of Insiders under the current regime sure paved the way for this. Just saying
Hi there
@magilla
Any Linux system can boot from any bootable device - even micro sd card.
Your best method for a dual boot system is to define the Linux boot partition (/boot and maybe /boot/efi for efi boots) on a totally separate HDD / device -- even a usb stick or drive and install the rest of the os on a partition of your choice.
Then at boot just choose the boot device . If you want the linux /boot could have an entry for Windows so it can boot windows . That way you avoid touching / contaminating your Windows stuff at all.
At system install time you can select what disks to use and where you want to install the boot manager.
Plenty of advice on 'Nix forums on how to do this -- as this is a Windows forum I won't go into details other than to say installing most distros of Linux is pretty straight forward these days -- but READ THE SCREEN PROMPTS before willy nilly pressing Enter.
For just testing / playing why not use a Live distro to see if you like it. I'd use one on an external SSD but a USB3 stick is also good -- Linux is tiny compare with windows if you just stick to a small GUI and don't install everything possible !!!
For the nearest equivalence to Windows a KDE desktop is probably a wise choice -- the UBUNTU default GUI looks pretty appalling - for KDE on UBUNTU add the kde-desktop after install (or use KUBUNTU). Linux mint has itself a decent GUI too. I like CENTOS as it's really stable but might not be leading edge for some people here. In any case there's loads of choices.
Of course there's always another alternative - run your Linux as a VM (Virtual Machine) then you don't have to dual boot and actually for beginners it is probably easier since you won't have to hunt around for special Linux drivers -- Sound can sometimes cause problems for a lot of people - especially with AMD CPU's and NVIDIA graphics cards. Using a VM these drivers will usually work as they are "emulated" by using the Windows ones as Virtual drivers.
VBOX and VMWARE player (both free) can be used on W10 PRO and HOME -- or if you are feeling a bit more adventurous and you have W10 pro you can try HYPER-V for running your VM.
@cereberus has some good posts in the Virtualisation section on setting this up to run a UBUNTU VM using HYPER-V.
Cheers
jimbo