Will be installing either Mint or Pop_OS on a new laptop which has a 512gb SSD. Will keep Windows for gaming, at least for now, with the games installed on an external HD. But otherwise, this is to experiment with living in Linux.
I understand that I can unallocate HD space from Windows in order to make room for the LInux OS, leaving at least 25 or 30gb for the Linux OS itself.
Do I then extend that space further, so to speak, to allow for any other programs I might install as well as for data? Do I create a third partition for data that will be shared between the two OS?
What’s a reasonable breakdown?
e.g.
Windows 100gb; Linux 400gb or
Win 100gb; Linux 30gb; Data (NTFS) 370gb?
Also, I’d say install Windows first, then Linux. Windows assumes it’s the only OS in the universe and tends to steamroll over the whole boot setup, so I’ve found it much easier to just let Windows do whatever it wants first, then fix it with Linux afterwards.
I know this is not an answer to your question, but I’ve found everything to be immensely easier with a second drive. I’ve screwed my pooch before!
This is my comment. 2 drives and you won’t have to worry.
This is with a laptop. So one would have to be on an external drive. That wouldn’t slow it down?
It would slow it down a bit depending on USB 2 or 3, HDD or SSD and such. But, allowing each OS to have its own boot partition on its own drive usually prevents Windows from overwriting your linux boot. Solves some big dual boot headaches.
I’ve also had updates on the Linux side cause the bitlocker stuff to freak out and require a recovery code with sharing a boot partition.
Default boot to Linux! I had dual boot set up for years and never actually booted into Linux. Once I changed the default to Linux I never booted into windows again (and eventually deleted that partition)
Keep a minimum of 30GB free, for Windows update processes on the windows system partition. I don’t how much the windows installation counts in space, but add that to the 30gb free space. I would recommend to have a extra partition for the games on NTFS and move your steam, epic, ubisoft, whatever library to that partition.
I have tried to use the same gaming partition between Linux and Windows, but failed every time. In the worst case this can alter your Windows privileges. At least I had this issue.
Currently I’m using Windows only for 2 games: Space Engineers and Empyrion. The rest works with better performance on Linux. Satisfactory, Ark survival, Elder Scrolls Online have more FPS on Linux with the same settings. I have to use a nvidia 1050 Ti in my laptop. With a AMD GPU the situation is a lot better on Linux.
I’m not a hardcore gamer, mostly im coding here and there. But sometimes gaming is a must have.
Space Engineers is such a good game
windows can and will destroy your bootloader at least once, show it no mercy
If you plan on using windows only for games and absolutely nothing else then there isn’t much of a point in making a shared partition between the two OS’es. Just keep them separate, to each partition its own. (So your first example win 100gb, Linux 400gb is what I personally would go with)
I just did this with my desktop pc when I added a second drive for additional storage. Instead of using it as additional storage for windows like I initially intended, I decided to dual boot with Mint on the second drive.
So far, I haven’t had any issue with gaming on Mint, either! Granted, most of the games I play are through Steam and either work with Proton or are native Linux to begin with. I did install a few games with Lutris, though, and works fine so far. Sea of Thieves, Astroneer, Slay the Spire, Deep Rock Galactic, are all working out of the box.
Only thing I haven’t attempted yet are multiplayer games with active anti-cheat, like LoL or CS:2. If those are the sorts of games you regularly play, you’ll probably be better off in the Windows partition/drive, but have fun experimenting in Linux!
Many people do dual drives, but if you install linux second and it is a distro thay uses grub with probe foreign OS them you don’t really need two drives. make space on windows drive, in the linux installer create another boot partition, root and home. You set bios to boot Linux grub. Grub will launch and give you linux or choice to chainload to Windows. Windows is unaware it is getting kicked off by grub so the Windows and Lunux boot partitions leave each other alone. i can’t vouch for every distro letting you setup like this but this is how my OoenSUSE has been since 2017
Sound great and I went the same way for a while. Just be aware that steam on Linux can have issues with ntfs partitions. So I also went the the two drive route, much less of a headache.
Just out of curiosity, if the games are on an external hard drive with a different format does that skirt the issue between Linux steam and ntfs?
Windows: 150GB. Linux: 100GB. The rest: Data.
And don’t forget to disable hybrid shut down in Windows.
Nice,. thank you. And ntfs for the data format is what I’ve understood to use
NTFS is the standard for Windows. Nowadays Linux can handle reading/writing NTFS pretty well, but you should probably use the very established ext4 or maybe btrfs for its partition.
For Linux, if you’re a beginner, EXT4. Experienced users - BTRFS.
And ntfs-3g is even better at writing on NTFS than Windows is. There are fragmentation examples online, Windows makes a fragmented mess while ntfs-3g takes great care regarding fragmentation. Plus reads/writes a lot faster than Windows does.
Yep, use NTFS. You can access it in both Windows and Linux. You’ll need to install ntfs-3g in Linux. It comes bundled in most mainstream distros, but just in case.
What about swap space? Is that still a thing?
Zram is really neat.
That is a good option as well, but for experienced users only and only if you have a lot of RAM and a UPS (or on a laptop with a working battery). Otherwise, power failiures mess that thing up.
You can make a swap file on the main partition where Linux is installed, that’s not a problem.
External drive as in via USB? You folks must have had better experiences than I, because I have absolutely zero faith in the USB interface.
Started dual booting Pop a few weeks ago, kept Windows for gaming for the same concern, but if you’ve got the major of your games in stream, Proton really is amazing. Had 0 issues with any game so far.
Check out Protondb and see if your current games are supported or not.
Once I’m 100% comfortable with Linux again I’ll probably bin of windows forever.
I already had a Windows install so letting Windows manage the bootloader seemed easier as I know it can cause issues if it thinks it’s not the OS as others have said.
