If you don’t respect the bootloader, you don’t get a seat at the table.

I have Win10 IOT installed in VirtualBox, but I haven't booted it in almost a year. I don't have any use for it, that Linux can't handle.

I got curious last week with how windows is now and decided to just spin up a copy on an extra 250gb ssd I had. I had a windows 11 usb stick so I just installed it. big mistake. during the MANY updates post install it decided to "upgrade" the bios on my thinkpad and now the volume controls (up, down, mute) are "backwards". I had to go into the bios to set the F1 thru 12 keys to enable without the use of the FN key to be able to use the FN key with them. it's so stupid.

Also thank god when I installed windows I used a throw away email to setup the account because it immediately got spammed with microsoft emails.

Never again.

I was setting up some template VMs on a fresh Proxmox VE (VM server) yesterday. Total install and troubleshooting times for each template were as follows;

• Linux Mint Debian Edition - 20 minutes
• Windows 10 IOT LTSC - 3 hours
• Windows 11 IOT LTSV - 6 hours, with the benefit of lessons learned from the Win 10 install.

The amount of obscure configs I had to dig up just to get them going was disgusting. Also, why the fuck are so many drivers not in Win10/11 by default, yet Linux has no issue including them all at a fraction of the ISO size?

i think it's in fact possible to install windows on btrfs or linux on ntfs.. and have them on one partition.

Both of these sound like terrible ideas

Ew…

they are indeed lmao

I set up dual boot just in case, but I can't remember the last time I even booted Windows. When I get a chance I'll probably just nuke it.

Well you see, if there are fewer drivers included there is more room for user friendly features, such as persistent ai intrusion. You probably also gonna update them anyway, might as well download fresh 😇

A pivotal moment in my life was when I first installed Linux to the entire hard disk instead of a separate partition.

Yeah I’d done the same a while back just to play D2 (fucking Battle Eye), but found I just never booted into it and said fuck it I’ll live w/o games that have incompatible anti cheat.

I believe it’s due to kernel philosophy.

Linux and Mac are a monolithic kernel, which I understand to mean that the entire OS runs in kernel space to operate the compatible hardware. This has the advantage of making sure the OS is in the drivers seat for resource management, and no individual program is easily able to overload the system and create instability, but it may limit the power of some programs and delay compatability of new hardware and software.

Windows, on the other hand, is a hybrid kernel, which means some functions are managed in user space so that a program has more control over the hardware. This can be useful for pushing gaming to the limit or running experimental/custom programs, but it can lead to instability from resource hungry programs or security vulnerabilities from Trojan horses.

As for why their ISO is huge, I s’pose it’s due to all the extra crap they throw in there like AI, pinball, and data collection stuff.

Apologies if I got something fundamentally wrong—there are plenty of bigger nerds than me on here—but that’s my best attempt at explaining the difference as well as I know it.

My first ever Linux install, I just went for it. I backed up my media, played around in the live environment for 5 minutes or so, then I wiped the drive and installed. No dual boot, no VM, just bare metal. That was 10 years ago, and I have never looked back.

And that was the moment Padme chose violence

How do I run my WMR kit on Linux to play modded Beat Saber? I can mod beat saber on Linux but I prefer to sweat in my WMR kit instead of my expensive Index.

My VR set up simply will not work in Linux yet, or at least not correctly. Once that's fixed I'll nuke my windows part

I did dual booting for a month just to make sure there wasn’t a single use case for windows left. Not ONE use case for me.

For the noobs to Linux, heed the words of your endlers: don't dual boot. The operating systems have a way of killing each other's bootloaders. It might even run fine for a while, but then one day there will be an update and one OS will be unbootable. Not worth the risk as a noob. If you're really worried you might need a Windows program, then just run a Windows VM within Linux. If you want to keep the option for gaming, then you could dual boot, but don't do it on a work critical machine.

I forgot I even had a Windows partition…

Didn't they remove pinball from Windows?

Dual boot is fine, you just need to choose some good options.

Method 1: Most recommended. use Refined as your boot loader and two drives, not partitions. This is the easiest, safest, and frankly nicest way to deal with this. At boot, before either system starts you get a nice graphical interface to choose which OS to go into.

Method 2: Partition style. Disable window fast startup. Disable windows hibernation (never hibernate windows before going into linux). Use UEFI and GPT no legacy methods. Don't encrpyt windows with bitlocker.

That said, my desktop and traveling laptop have been windows free for years, I have no need for it, and your advice is the safest way overall. A vm in linux with virtualmanager works very well.

I did dual booting for a long time, because ✨ proprietary drivers ✨ , To this day I can't use my wifi (there's no patch for now) or bluetooth, but it's acceptable price for not being under microsoft's feet

My windows install is safely on a drive nicknamed "STORAGE".

I use arch, btw.

It’s just like Microsoft to remove the one I might actually want out of those three. More pinball, less data collection!

I did it for almost a year. Went back over once just to get files I missed moving the first time.

Yeah I think it was removed in windows 7 or 8.

I think most other linux distros get the same treatment to be fair. I know I usually just nuke / and use the old /home

Don't worry windows. You may be back as a small virtual machine for some obscure rarely used reason.

literally the only reason I ever boot into WIndows now is for doing online exams for college that use spyware shit and throws a hissy fit if you'reon linux (both browser and app... well, if you can even get the testing app on Linux...)

I don't want to tinker around with something that determines my entire grade nor do I want to take my test on a school device because there might be files and programs I need, so I just switch to my Windows partition for that awful 5 hrs or so. But once I graduate that shit is getting nuked.

I back up /etc as well.

Your standard off the shelf easy to setup Linux ISO (mint for example) is like 4 GB after install, it includes a whole office suite, a few games, screensavers, GIMP, and a whole bunch of software you may not ever realize is on there or even need.

Did you know many distros standard install includes the GNU C/C++ compiler? Do most people need the GNU compiler? No, but the whole OS and all these tools is already smaller than a barebones install of windows since microslop just ships bloat.

I'm too worried about config misconfigs to do that, I usually have a clean slate for /etc and then delete per user configs as I hit snags.

I wish I didn’t have a purpose for Windows. I need to dual boot because I can’t get FL studio on my Steamdeck.

Have you tried stuff like WINE? I thought I'd heard of people using FL Studio without much issue, but I may be confusing it with another program.

What is so precious on Linux that you cannot do on Windows? Dynamic Tiling? - Komorebi. TUI file manager? -Yazi. Custom themes, and bars? -Yep. Bash? -Yep (along with uutils). GPU accelerated terminal emulator? - multiple including Windows Terminal.

What you're giving up on Linux is most professional industry standard productivity software, and many of the games real gamers actually want to play (not all crap that pirates collect). You're giving up security by default (Arch, Gentoo and the like along with TWMs will have people storing browser passwords in the equivalent of a text file for just one example). You give up an OS that evolved to deal better without ECC memory (todays Windows is far more resilient to bitflips).

Even FOSS software runs better on Windows. VLC causing Linux to seize was just one of many examples.

So yes, I agree that for 99.9% of people, dual booting is a waste of disk space.

@madthumbs > What is so precious on Linux that you cannot do on Windows?Stay private and technologically independent.@cannedtuna

If you do everything right. For most people you're just standing there with your dick, or clam, out.

This is a great example of a comment that wasted energy for no good reason at all, you could have spent it all in your industry standard productivity game instead and nothing would have changed

"real gamers" lmao

There's a chance I'd still have a windows install alongside Linux, if windows would just mind its own business.

The last winblows in this house is on (one of three) its own disk on a t440p, just in case a piece of shit needs a firmware update, and I dread that moment, last time I needed it was an 8BitDo , now in the hands of my kiddo on Bazzite (thank Athena I now have a steam controller). Not sure what I'm saying other than let the BIOS do the switching and may you never need to boot windows again.

Windows, on the other hand, is a hybrid kernel, which means some functions are managed in user space so that a program has more control over the hardware.

Windows and Linux are both monolithic kernels, in the sense that most device drivers run in kernel mode with kernel privilege. They're not like Mach or Hurd.

Windows outsourced their device driver development early on to the hardware manufacturers, and they encouraged closed-source drivers with separate source trees and builds. To facilitate this, Windows NT developed a system called plug-n-play (PnP) which searches for and loads driver modules (.sys files) from disk into the kernel.

Linux developed a similar system of loadable kernel modules (.ko files), but their system arrived much later. One reason is that Linux's GPLv2 license mandates that driver source code be licensed under compatible terms. That and Linux has always been pretty open about accepting driver code into their main source tree. Finally, manufacturers were never interested early on in writing Linux drivers, so the driver development was being done by the community, which was already using the Linux source tree.

So Linux didn't have as much pressure to develop a loadable module system. So they did it later.

To the present day, the majority of Linux device drivers are submitted to mainline Linux and go through the Linux review process. Windows drivers are mainly developed by third parties, but they do have to go through the Windows Hardware Quality Labs review and testing process.

Apple writes all their MacOS drivers internally, because they are also the hardware OEM.

Turn that on its head.

What is so precious on Windows that you cannot do on Linux?

Sell my telemetry to the highest bidder? Give me ads in my desktop? Force AI into every request i make? Capture images of everything I do and store them against my wishes so that malware can come in and access that? You want to be the target of practically every worm/virus/botnet out there? You want what is demonstrably the worst history of security for any desktop OS with one of the most bypassed antivirus systems in existence?

What you're giving up with Windows are a few handfulls of games with kernel-level anti-cheat that already fail to keep people from cheating. You want to play Roblox right? It's FULL of players, you must! Fortnight? Super important titles.

Of course then you have things like Outlook that are already being replaced by Electron apps that exactly the same on linux in a browser.

So yes, I agree that for 99.9% of people, dual booting is a waste of disk space.

Right,
The only people concerned about Telemetry are conspiracy theorists. The other 80% of people don't care, and a good amount of them understand that it's used for improving software.

What Linux advocates call ads are introductions to features and things that would benefit them, and they're far easier to turn off than switching OSes.

Many of us have been using Windows without ever encountering a virus. -I went out of my way to get one so I could test my skills on it (only time and I'm 55).

There are far more than just 'kernel level AC games'. We've seen this propaganda for years while Proton keeps realease new compatibility updates. Also, even your Linux loving LTT called ProtonDB a what? Only recently did WINE (not Proton) fix the frame timing issue that made some games unbeatable mid-game (far worse than not working).

Most people aren't bothering with an email client these days.

Propaganda.

@madthumbs Have you noticed where you are, lol?

There's a Linux port of it on Flathub

Namely: running software.

(JK JK I swear I'll switch as soon as I'm not fighting abject poverty and can afford a hard drive, internet, etc.)

I don't have a Steamdeck, but to be the linux guy of music software: you tried Reaper, yet?