I’m looking to finally use Linux properly and I’m planning to dual boot my laptop. There’s enough storage to go around, and while I’m comfortable messing around I’d rather not have to run and buy a new device before school while fixing my current one.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VaIgbTOvAd0
This was the general guide I was planning to follow, just with KDE Plasma (or another KDE). I was going to keep windows the default, and boot into Linux as needed when I had time to learn and practice.
I assume it should be the near similar process for KDE Plasma?
I’m ok with things going wrong with the Linux install, but I’d like to keep the Windows install as safe as possible.
Always install Windows first then Linux in dualboot, otherwise microsoft messes with your boot area. Have a separate boot partition for Linux and some distros have foreign OS probe and will auto setup your grub menu to chainload to windows. This stops Windiws messing with your Linux boot partition since it has no clue it exists
Windows and Linux keeps track of time differently. One stores the time in your current time zone. The other stores the GMT time and adds an offset. I forget which one does what but it results in your time being wrong each time you switch from Linux to Windows or vice versa. You can search for how to fix it, its not very hard, or you can just ignore it and reset your clock each time you switch OS.
I don’t think that’s the case anymore.
I just checked, the time in the UEFI BIOS is in UTC, yet both Linux and Windows 10 display the local time correctly as an offset to UTC. I didn’t have to do anything special for that.
Edit:
So I looked a bit deeper into it, and this is apparently controlled by a registry key called RealTimeIsUniversal in [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation]. You can paste the text below in a .reg file and then import it to set the parameter:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation]
"RealTimeIsUniversal"=dword:00000001
I confirmed that this setting exists on my system, but I have no memory of ever manually setting this parameter. It’s documented in the Arch wiki though, so it’s possible that I did set it and forgot about it.
In any case, if you do a fresh Windows install and your time differs between Linux and Windows , this is what you should check.
It is with Windows 10 and Mint. I booted into Mint a few days ago, and when I switched back to Windows, the time was wrong.
Apparently it’s easy to fix, but I keep forgetting while I’m in Mint >.<
You can also fix it by running the following command on your Linux machine:
timedatectl set-local-rtc 1 --adjust-system-clock
@Tippon @SpaceCadet you can set your system clock to UTC to fix the problem. Here’s a registry fix to tell Windows to use UTC.
https://uilton.com/kb/how-to-make-windows-store-time-in-utc/
If your laptop has room for a second drive, it’s easiest to put Linux on its own drive.
Unfortunately there’s just the one slot. I’m going to keep that in mind for future purchases
So then if the drive is big enough, use the shitty windows partition manager and shrink the windows partition, leaving as much space as you want for Linux.
Also you can try Linux on a Live ISO or even install it on a USB stick, but with UEFI thats a pain.
Ventoy on a fast usb stick or better a nvme case (cheap one + 256Gb is easily sub $100 and who can’t use screaming fast external storage) via a usb3+ port is pretty godlike and really convenient.
Boot with a live USB image first. Check and see if everything is working. Don’t be married to the first Linux distro you try.
This is really the best advice. Dual boot via USB. Once something clicks, then look at dual booting.
USB boot is the second most fun way to learn Linux. Esp with high speed 40Gbs flash, there isn’t a ton of reason not to.
However backing up then trashing your windows environment will really teach one — it is a commitment!! But the learning will defn happen, there is no turning back after the windows partition gets scratched and GRUB enters the scene.
“Monitor scan line cfg don’t fail me now!”
“Interesting, mobo WiFi is MIA. Where did that 20’ Ethernet cable go?”
“Audio device not found. Okkkkkl”
I would now say never on the same disk. A shame because many laptops only have one slot. But Windows 11 may do anything and you never know what happens after a “Windows update”
Twice after a windows update I lost my bootloader menu and my laptop would boot straight into Windows. After the second time I just removed Windows. Some investigation revealed that “Windows does not support dual booting” which I believe translates to “we will ocationally cause issues that a beginner would struggle to fix in the hopes of them staying on Windows.” Just a theory. Separate drives for sure if you can. No idea if they still do this as it’s been years since I dual booted
Yes its horrible. This may happen during their weird updates.
Interestingly you can swap drives Windows 11 and Fedora, it does “repair” bullshit at the beginning but works.
If you never update windows (which is so horrible that you actually need to consider that) you can first install it, shrink it and install Linux.
I’ve seen people talk about Windows messing up the Linux install. Have there been cases where the windows install itself was messed up after an update (or is it straight up “you never know” and anything can happen)
I only have one slot, and I’d prefer to not have to carry around a USB or external drive if I can avoid it. I’m ok with having to redo the Linux install/setup, and it might be nice practice anyway. But I definitely need to have windows running and stable for schoolwork.
When I was using windows 10 + linux mint for over the 2 years I never got a boot problem from windows update. You just need a separate EFI partition for linux boot loader.
My Partitions: Windows boot C: D: Windows recovery or some other crap Linux EFI for grub / (Root directory) Swap
I don’t bother with separate /home because I never know how much I will fill up my disk
So for me USB sticks dont even work on Secureboot, so you need to disable that.
Then you can shrink your windows partition and install Fedora or something in the rest. Only use the unallocated space.
I actually removed the windows Bootloader manually, the IT simply removed the Linux bootloader instead, lol.
I’ve never had an issue, outside of bios updates (see last paragraph). I’ve even booted into windows after hibernating in linux (but not the other way around, since I don’t let windows hibernate; not saying you can’t, just that I don’t), and everything was fine when i got back. I use a swap partition for hibernating, in case you’re curious.
I do try to make sure I’m watching when it reboots after a windows update (because linux is my default, so i have to select windows from the boot loader) just in case, but i’ve also fucked that up a time or two with no ill effects.
My one piece of advice is: once you get it working, take a picture of your bios settings. You may have to fix some settinga after bios updates, as they can get set back to the default values. I did not do this, and while it led to a very confusing afternoon due to my inexperience, it would have been a non-issue if I’d have taken some pictures and known to look at them.
