Only beacuse there are a couple of softawares that I need that don’t run well in Bottles (Nitro Pro and an old app for anothere thing). It’s a laptop with CPU i7 and a NVIDIA graphic card 1050 ti. Which distro would be best suited for the task? Is Mint ok? Thank you. Update: Setting the dual boot was getting messy, so I clean installed Mint. I’ll try Windows VM later hoping it wont be too difficoult.
If you ever try dual booting again, just wanted to say it works much better if you have linux and windows on separate drives because windows gets to do whatever it wants on its own bootloader while linux handles everything else including switching to windows. Familiar with acer nitro laptops myself and 1050ti with i7 I assume means it’s the older model with the hdd bay you can get to without disassembling. Should be simple enough to plop a 500GB SATA SSD in there for windows if you don’t have one already.
P.S. be very careful with the hinges on that laptop bc it ain’t fun when they break
Consider kubuntu, it’s similar to windows
Won’t help the software compatibility
I always recommend people just install linux on their previous laptop if they kept it. Most will find their old laptop performs better with linux than the newer one with windows.
Another hint: Even if Lutris claims to be for games, there are often install scripts for windows applications too. So it may be worth to try to run your apps with Lutris. It should be in the mint packages (try
sudo apt install lutris). Then you can add your software in Lutris with the upper left “+” button. Just use the search in the dialog box. I managed to run FL Studio like this, exactly as performant as on windows. Good luck and welcome to the linux family!Really any distro should be fine. It’s more a matter of getting the bootloader setup correctly.
Do note that, depending on the configuration, Windows will randomly overwrite stuff and mess up dual boot.
If you can for your situation, I would suggest running a Windows VM inside Linux to get certain tasks done.
You can solve that problem by making an additional efi/boot partition when you install Linux over the Windows install.
You have Linux setup with its own boot partition and the install should probe for a foreign OS, it then adds a chainloader entry in grub to point to the Windows EFI partition.
You set BIOS to boot from Linux EFI partition. When it comes up at boot you can chose Windows and Grub hands over control to the windows bootloader, but Windows is ignorant of Linux EFI existing. It now only messes with its own EFI and never touches the Linux stuff.
@utnapishtim
That is a good idea. Think I have done that before but it’s been so long I forgot. These days I just have one windows machine that runs on separate hardware. Keeps everything isolated.
I stopped dual booting windows 10 just because it kept messing up my boot loader when it performed certain updates
Well I suppose that issue goes away next month when win 10 goes EOL and stops getting updates.
Hahah very true
A workaround would be to cut off Windows Update and manually install major revisions when they get released. You will need to reconstruct grub less often and still remain on latest revisions
I will try Win VM, I hope I’ll male It work.
Adding to your comment, perhaps having 2 separate bootloaders reduces the chances of such breakages.
Take any distro you fancy, Mint is a good start. Create a bootable USB stick an try it out. This is does not modify anything on your computer, just loads linux and let’s you test it. I usually play a youtube video. This shows that wifi, video and sound work out of the box.
Next step could be installing it in a virtual machine. Dual booting can be a pain in the ass due to Windows not playing nice.
This depends on the goal. Sure, installing Linux in a VM is easy and will always work. Also working within a VM is usually just fine. However you still have to keep Windows underneath with all it’s problems like end of 10.
i’ve used linux in the past for servers so i did have some background but when i switched on my desktop from windows to linux, i jumped right into mint and it’s been one of the best experiences. setup was pretty easier; i recommend using a live usb to test it out since you can install right from there.
Even though I use EndeavourOS (Arch easy installer), I won’t hesitate to vouch for Mint. I’m using its Cinnamon desktop environment (DE) and it’s the best user experience I’ve had after having used Xfce, KDE Plasma, Budgie, Gnome, et cetera.
We’re you able to keep all your files from windows when you transitioned?
well most of the stuff i really wanted i either had in google drive (i just use it as an external hdd for random files) and then i moved the important stuff cough downloaded movies and shows to another external hdd and the rest i just blew away.
Copy, my major worry about swapping my daily driver over to Linux is because of the way Windows hides all my shit in clouds and random places for some reason I’m concerned I’ll lose something.
the major things i would check is your documents folder, which can be linked to onedrive, and to turn off bitlocker encryption if you’re going to remove windows entirely (your keys to it might be in your microsoft account). usually everything else is just in the folder on the drive; if you want any app data, then check the appdata folders but you’re better off just starting fresh or getting an export from the app if it allows and has a compatable linux version.
for browsing, most of my stuff was in my firefox account anyway so i could just sign back in on linux and get my bookmarks, history, etc.
just had to set up my imap info in thunderbird but all the emails were on the server so that wasn’t a big deal.
honestly any distro you want. Try a few out. Load a bunch of live ISO’s on a usb drive and give them a spin. Distro hop until you find one you really like. that’s the beauty of Linux they’re all pretty easy to set up (hell even Arch is easy to set up now) so you can try a bunch of different ones.
You want to tinker and play around with your system? try an Arch based distro. You want something that has great support and will just work out of the box? try an Ubuntu one. Want something really unique that you can take with you where ever you go? give NixOS a shot. There are a ton of options and they’re all pretty good.
I would suggest you get one that’s arch based, one fedora, one ubuntu, maybe nixos, one debian, etc and see which one you like best.
Have you tried the softwares using winapps or winboat?
Might be a smoother solution than having to boot two different OSes.https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
https://github.com/TibixDev/winboatI saw winboat recommended the other day and was pleasantly surprised at its performance, so yeah I’d recommend giving it a try too
I’ll try that, thank you.
Could you share laptop specs? Judging by your post any distro should work fine. Can’t go wrong choosing a popular distro like Fedora or Mint.
This is it: Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 19045) (19041.vb_release.191206-1406) System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. System Model: TUF Gaming FX705GE_FX705GE BIOS: FX705GE.307 (type: UEFI) Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz (12 CPUs), ~2.2GHz Memory: 16384MB RAM Available OS Memory: 16234MB RAM Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Manufacturer: NVIDIA Chip type: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC Device Type: Full Device
Based on the specs, I can already see two potential issues.
- Windows 10
- NVIDIA
Let me guess, you can’t upgrade to W11. If so, dual booting to an abandoned system like that is risky. If I had to do that, I would only do it while the computer is totally offline. If you do get updates to the Windows partition, there are reports of Windows breaking some dual boot things. This means, that you might need to fix some things after a Windows update.
Also, NVIDIA hates Linux with a burning passion. You can make things work to some extent, but it can be a rocky ride. Wifi is another potential issue in case you happen to have a wifi chip that isn’t well supported. Just try a live USB first before installing and you’ll know if something doesn’t work.
Because of all of the above, this looks like a system that can run Linux, but you might need to prepare for some tweaking. There are easier starting points too, but then you would need to sell that old computer and buy something nicer to replace it with. With hardware like that, you’re definitely not playing this game in the easy mode, that’s for sure.
OP, note that Nvidia isn’t as bad on Linux as it used to be.
How’s power management doing these days?
Dunno it was fine for me always I was 940mx with their closed driver just nvidia dropping this generation as author of question have on nvidia 580 version but mint will be fine for him.
Nvidia is actually as good as AMD now-a-days.
Oh, that’s good to hear.
I would also recommend Mint with Windows as a VM over dual booting. I find the workflow is better to not leave Linux but rather load the VM for the windows needs. This is especially with nonaggressive apps like modifying PDFs. If you were going to produce music or edit videos dual boot might be a better option.
I wouldn’t recommend WinBoat for you yet. Its too new, and while I like what I’ve tested I want to see it in a year or two after it’s fleshed out. At the end of the day you’re running Windows in a VM anyways, so its pretty much the same thing.
Once you understand how the Linux bootloader works, restoring it is easy if windows breaks it. The other way around is more tricky if windows refuses to cooperate.
That being said, using a rescue usb like systemrescuecd will allow you to boot a Linux OS even if the bootloader isn’t working properly.
Coming from Windows Mint is a great start
You can dual boot it, that’s how I started and never looked back
How familiar are you with Linux? If you’re new to it, pick something mainstream with lots of support and advice out there. I usually recommend Mint as a starter distro - it’s well supported, easy to use and doesn’t have the downsides of a distro like Ubuntu.
If you’re familiar with Linux then I’d recommend a point release distro and not a rolling release distro. Rolling release are cutting edge but that means much more opportunity for things to go wrong which isn’t a good thing to deal with if you’re new to Linux.
Beyond that, most distros dual boot well with Windows (although Windows is not well-designed and can occasionally break the bootloaders as others have said).
I’m on OpenSuSE and recommend it; it’s well designed with good tools in the form.of YaST. I’m personally not a fan of Fedora but I know a lot of people swear by it as a distro. Of the big distros I’d basically only really avoid Ubuntu because of how Snap is forced down people’s throats. I’m also personally not a fan of immutable distros due to the reliance on Flatpak and other downsides but your milage may vary.
Regardless, dual boot with Linux and Windows is a good solution. It’s how I got into Linux; my main PC still has a Win 10 partition which I don’t use but keep as a backup. My laptop and a living room.Media PC are pure Linux.
I’d say Win 11 in a VM is an alternative route for those few apps but I find windows is a bit laggy even on a decent PC. It’s perfectly usable - I’ve run Office and even windows at dual 4k without major issue, but there is a noticeable albeit small input lag and slowness in rendering the desktop that I found just annoying enough to put me off (even at 1080p single screen to be clear).
From reading it seems Win 11 does work fine if you pass through a discrete graphics card for it to use but that’s only doable if you have 2 GPUS. You might have that option if your laptop has a discrete graphics card as well as an integrated one. For me it reflects how bloated and poorly optimised windows is, but there are people who report getting Win 11 to work with high end games without issue although it takes some work. Meanwhile I can get Linux VMs on a Linux host to run at near native performance with ease.
There are free alternatives to Nitro Pro but if it’s an essential for you I’d try dual booting initially while.you test but don’t have to solely rely on VMs initially. If VMs do the job then wiping Windows will free up a lot of space and also stop it interfering in your Laptop set up.
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