this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2025
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I tried setting up a dual boot Mint next to my Win 11 last night. Just so I can experiment with getting all the (replacement) programs of my Win 11 install to work on there… froze during install and was busy for hours getting my boot files for Win 11 back.
I’m not a technical genius or anything and now I’m scared to try again. I assume it’s way easier if I would just rip the bandaid off and do it in one go. Sadly too much relies on me still being able to use the computer close to the way I could before. Ah well. Another day, another chance to nuke the boot files.
Dual boot with Windows is terrible because of how fastboot messes with the drive partitions. If you want to dual boot you will have to turn off Windows fastboot.
Thanks, I’ll look into that!
Clone your drive first and then no matter what happens you have a quick click to restore. I've run dual boots on multiple distros for years and you learn a whole lot when things go wrong.
Good call. I have 2 hard dives and really thought that if I didn’t touch the win 11 drive it couldn’t possibly cause windows issues. Lol. Not making that mistake again.
What programs are causing you concern?
I use a lot of adobe programs, like photoshop, illustrator and Lightroom. The standard MS office stuff and a bunch of games both via steam and the EA AppStore, some of which are windows only. Mind you, I know most if not all should work using wine (or similar) or have good alternatives. But I’d rather try first before nuking windows.
That's all very reasonable. I certainly encourage caution.
I've never really voluntarily used Adobe products, nor the EA store, but I can tell you Linux support for gaming has come a long way, even for "Windows only" games. If you're unsure about a particular one, a great place to start is protondb.com. I don't know if they work with EA, but I've also heard good things about Lutris and Bubbles.
As you said, there are good alternatives, including Open or LibreOffice. You might benefit from reviewing alternativeto.net, which isn't specifically Linux focused but has a good chance of giving you options. For example:
https://alternativeto.net/software/adobe-lightroom/
Good luck with your experimentation!
Windows 11 seemed to kick and scream relentlessly to make coexisting impossible. So I called its bluff and nuked its stupid ass. It refuses to play nice? OK; It never gets to play again. Fuck windows. I have a separate machine for windows if I really need it.
Good for you! Nuking windows is indeed the end goal. Dual boot for me is a proof of concept as a step on the way.