So I’ve already had experience with dual booting windows/Linux and using different types of Linux distros on their own as well as using virtual machines. I’ve gotten rid of windows on my desktop completely but my laptop still has windows 11 and is the only thing I own that uses windows at all anymore. Before I make the jump I wanted to see a couple peoples opinions because I’m no expert but I feel like its easier for things to go wrong when changing a laptop as opposed to a desktop.
Do I have anything to worry about? Is the process going to be basically the same? Will there be any “safeguards” in the laptop that try to prevent something like this?
The laptop is an Asus zenbook pro duo, 1tb ssd, 32gb ram, Intel i7, nvidia geforce rtx 3070. Just in case that has any effect on anything.
Dual booting with Windows and Linux on the same physical drive is risky as Windows has a reputation for breaking bootloaders. If you want to try things out safely, use Ventoy. It will also let you easily test drive multiple live images, if you want.
Give Fedora KDE a try. I wouldn’t recommend Ubuntu to anyone.
I’ve heard nvidia power management is a shitshow for laptops, I know someone that couldn’t get rtd3 power management to work on their 3000 series laptop gpu. that was on arch though, im not sure if Ubuntu has something set up already to handle that
Did it about a month ago. Total newbie. It went pretty smooth other than it not booting straight away, I used the packager the unbuntu guide suggested. I needed to change a Setting and ended up doing it again the following day and used a different packager and then it booted without problem.
Nothing wrong with Ubuntu, but it’s interface is definitely geared more towards Mac folks.
My recommendation for someone making the jump to full time Linux is Fedora Kinoite. It’s “immutable” meaning impossible to break, and uses KDE Plasma, which is like the modern Windows you’ve always wanted.
Again nothing wrong with Ubuntu, it’s great and will run on the hardware you mentioned, but if you are someone who wants to tweak settings without fear of breaking something somewhere else, I really recommend Kinoite.
I just recommend checking things from the live boot environment. I found out once that some things didn’t work (HDMI , Ethernet, Wi-Fi) only after installing, and it was a hassle. Ended up switching to a different distro that did work out of the box.
Everything will mostly work out of the box without any intervention. However, this is one of ASUS’ most problematic models even on Windows due to the dual screens and touch features.
Check this out: https://github.com/Fmstrat/zenbook-duo-linux
There’s also a handful of other repos that specifically address ASUS feature compatibility for their odd models. You should be fine.
Also something to remember, if you really need Windows back it can be reinstalled almost as easily as any Linux distro. You flash an .iso to a USB, download massgrave, and you’re set.
For sure the ideal is not needing Windows at all, but as one of those people who do need it and find myself reinstalling it fairly often (niche VR hardware), it’s easier to make the leap to wipe a Windows install when you know you can get it back without too much fuss.
I doubt there’s anything to get “wrong” during the install. The most likely issue I see is after installation; support for weird hardware may or may not be there. If that happens, you can just make a windows installer stick on your desktop and go back to the way it was.
Hardware seems powerful enough that Ubuntu will run fine.
On software side, if you must use a Windows program, Wine usually solves it. If it doesn’t, Virtualbox does. If it doesn’t, some times you can find per-case solutions. If you can’t, we’d be working with extremely edge cases that maybe you could solve by swapping the SSD for one with Windows installed or getting a cheap second hand computer just for that.
Also for installation, it’s pretty much the same, you plug the boot device, enter BIOS, select it to load first, exit and follow the instruction on the screen.
