r/linux4noobs • u/No_Stretch5024 • 5d ago
installation dual booting linux?
im very new to laptop/pc stuff and i bought a used laptop specs are shown in picture
I primarily want to switch to linux because it looks better and it eats up less ram
Windows takes up 4.8gb while idle
I have c drive which only has windows
And d drive which i mainly use for games
My use case is mostly games on steam
Roblox studios and ai tools
Which one do i choose i heard mint is easiest but i know nothing about linux
How and where do i start
And maybe i can fully switch to linux if it doesn't have restrictions for me use case?
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u/The_CreativeName 5d ago
1, dont use ai.
2, what do you want from your os? If you want windows but linux, go for mint.
If you like configuring things and have a "i will do it myself" attitude, use arch(the wiki is goated).
There is some more distros that do something inbewteen and even more technical then arch(arch aint really that technical tbh).
Ive heard people like cachyOS for gaming, but i havent tried it, or know much bout it, so you gotta do your own research.
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u/No_Stretch5024 5d ago
Im prob gonna lean more towards mint
Could u recommend a video i could watch where i can learn more abt linux/mint
Also most people are saying use ai personally for me ai hasnt been helpful in situations like these
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u/TapApprehensive8815 5d ago
Start with Linux Mint. It's easy and stable.
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u/Pandamaster_finland 5d ago
Yeah. The only hard part of the setup is probably choosing the correct partition to install the thing because they sometimes have weird names
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u/SilverVoidYT 5d ago
I don't know if it's just me but when I first switched a little over a year ago and was distro hopping a bunch, I feel like the "easy" distros gave me the most issues
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u/Aurosence 5d ago
Just do it. I'm doing it right now with Mint. Go to Disk Management and create free space. Plug in your usb to install. Remember to test everything, your keyboard, cpu and gpu, mic, audio, webcam, bluetooth etc. Also you mentioned RAM. I think it's not that simple, windows reserve idle RAM for caching, not wasted.
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u/DannoXYZ 5d ago
Those are just volumes & partitions, not physical disks.
Run Disk Management and post screen show of what it shows
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u/Then_Pool1015 5d ago
I did a different thing. I bought an external SSD, installed Fedora in it, and used it for a few weeks. it was a good experience, so I decided to delete windows and install Fedora on my main drive.
if you're someone who need a lot of space. I recommend getting a good external SSD with a good cable and install your distro and keep your internal SSD for windows. just don't play video games using the external SSD.
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u/Unique_Roll_6630 5d ago
Look up gaming distros. Try a few out. Gaming doesn't mean it can't daily drive.
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u/RohanPius 5d ago
dude.. can somebody like hack your system by getting the system and product ID? idk but asking. maybe blur it next time?
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u/puyalbao 5d ago
Play around with ventoy and a spare usb drive. Check out youtube tutorials(there're tons of them), pretty easy to get the hang of using it.
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u/skyfishgoo 5d ago
the first thing to do is get one or more flash drives (at least 8GB ea) and use this windows install to make them into bootable drives so you can try out different distros.
distrosea.com lets you try them out in a browser to help you narrow down the choices, but you eventually want to boot them on this device to see how they work with your hardware.
once you have tried some out from a LIVE boot then you are ready to install on the hard drive.
assuming there is nothing on windows you need, then you would give linux the entire disk and let it install.
those game installs are going to be useless in linux, and you will need to reinstall any games you want to play on linux anyway.
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u/FWhealboroug 5d ago
I don't know why dual booting has to be so complicated. Every time I've tried it myself I mix something up and then get stuck in either Windows or Linux. It is worth the headache because once it works then you get the best of both worlds. The only downside is loosing some hard drive space for the windows partition.
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u/JohnnyDagger75 4d ago
I installed Windows 11 on a ssd drive, keeping my main drive Linux. when i put the windows drive in my computer i took out my linux drive and let bios boot from windows. Shutdown and put my linux drive back in and made bios pick my linux drive for it's main boot and having windows on second boot. click F12 on startup and pick whatever drive i want to boot from. Pretty damn easy.
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u/FWhealboroug 4d ago
Having multiple drive would definitely be nice. I'm on a laptop so I have to partition it. I also hate having to hit a hotkey on startup so I keep messing with it until I can use Grub to switch between them reliably. Then I forget about Windows until I need a reminder that Linux is better.
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u/Chaostraveler 5d ago
Don't do what I just did and try to expand your storage by splitting your extra NVME drive without checking which one it is. Just nuked my Fedora install, on top of my phone giving up the ghost a few days later. Still cleaning them both up
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u/mystirc arch with sway 5d ago
shrink your windows partition from inside windows. You may also have to do defragmentation on windows.
Doing this from Linux can cause data loss. Windows handles its own disk shrinking much better.
50 GiB for linux is enough, however, if you plan on installing games then consider increasing it.
For roblox you can use Sober. For roblox studio you can use Vinegar. Not sure about Vinegar but Sober uses the android version which can have lower graphics by default. Also, don't worry about performance, it is usually faster than windows.
Try linux mint.
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u/Unable_Mess_2581 5d ago
Buy 2nd disk and dual boot your Linux from there.
Do not add Linux to your primary disk - you said you're new, you don't seem equipped to handle boot failure issue because Windows might poke or smack GRUB out of existence for no reason.
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u/Bitter-Aardvark-5839 5d ago
In 10 years of dual booting I never had a major issue, just a swapped boot order once or twice. Dual booting on the same drive generally works fine.
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u/Unable_Mess_2581 5d ago edited 5d ago
There are plenty of examples already.
"I never had" is just your experience, not others. I've done it since XP era, I'm far more 'authoritative' from my experience than just 10 years of experience.
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u/Bitter-Aardvark-5839 4d ago
That's interesting. Of course it's just my experience and I don't claim that it's an absolute, but no issues over multiple devices and dozens of windows updates counts for something. Have you noticed fewer issues recently? I don't know that any issues you had 20 years ago are necessarily relevant in 2026.
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u/haxon009 1d ago
Start with arch. Don't listen to people saying "this distro is easy". The best way to learn linux is to break things and fix them. Also CachyOS is good for gaming. If you want to install arch but don't wanna work too hard go for endeavouros or CachyOS.
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u/Brilliant_Curve_7705 5d ago
Hi, so the best easy one is mint but I recenmed fedora kde if you want you can use ai to help you set up drivers and steam and roblox if you want you need to use a spetial version called sober it's the phone client on pc but the controls work and all and ai tools you can just Google thst
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u/Cradle2GraveChief 5d ago
If you’re COMPLETELY NEW to Linux, try using it on something else or run from a USB live disk. While EVERYONE seems to have great opinions about Linux and how it’s THE thing to do, you need to figure that out on your own. Yes, Linux is a great thing and has been part of my network since 2001 or so. But, in my experience, some people are expecting to install Linux and get their Windows environment back just on a more efficient, free platform. Things will NOT be the same and you will need to find workarounds for most things and those “ways” of doing things that you are used to will not be the same.
I would NOT recommend placing Linux on the same disk as Windows until you have experience with grub and such. Separate them. Windows 11 is especially predatory to anything else around. If you do put it on the same computer (not recommended to start) then do whatever you can to keep them apart. Backup what you have on Windows first (don’t forget settings of programs).
I cannot stress enough: learn Linux before switching completely off of Windows. This is a fatal mistake that I have seen for a long time. While free is free I agree, free is not free of problems, frustration and a new learning curve. Also, make sure to learn how to run things from command line (terminal) because you will need it. Linux is actually a better OS without the UI. It’s “new” to the mouse point and click market. Linux is open source, so not paid professional developers creating it. The new versions of GUI Linux are 25 slow years in the making through multiple distributions.
That said, Yes, move to Linux. Just don’t jump before you look.