Looking for linux guru

[MagicManICT]

it's been 20+ years since I ran any version of *nix. Been trying to find practical, up-to-date information on installing a Linux kernel along side Win 10, but everything I'm finding is a couple of years old and as much reporting of problems of running on a UEFI BIOS. (If I'm reading right, most of the major distros support UEFI now, but maybe not? I'm lost.) I really don't want my first foray back into *nix to be a bunch of hacking. I'm going to have a ton to relearn, anyway.

[Ysh]

Last time I dual boot multiple operating system I think I do not do anything fancy. Just install windows on one HDD and linux on different HDD. Then when I boot computer I will hit key to change boot order of these HDDs to load whichever operating system I will like. Though at this time I am not a man who will need to change these systems multiple times a day, so I do not need some very nice way to do it.

These days I just have separate machine for windows (windows only games) and linux (everything else) and use usb/dvi switch to change over peripheral.

[shubla]

Last time I dual boot multiple operating system I think I do not do anything fancy. Just install windows on one HDD and linux on different HDD. Then when I boot computer I will hit key to change boot order of these HDDs to load whichever operating system I will like. Though at this time I am not a man who will need to change these systems multiple times a day, so I do not need some very nice way to do it.

These days I just have separate machine for windows (windows only games) and linux (everything else) and use usb/dvi switch to change over peripheral.

Do what the ysh says.
Buy two different storage medias, install windows on one of them and linux on one of them and you wont have any issues.

[MagicManICT]

Buy two different storage medias, install windows on one of them and linux on one of them and you wont have any issues.

I've got a spare drive, and that's the plan. It's small, though, and a bit older so i'm not sure how much life is left in it. If my computer was a bit beefier I'd consider running them back and forth in a VM, but A) not enough RAM to run games with, anyway, and B) stuck with Win 10 home, so no VM without upgrading (I'm not finding solild VM software for Win 10, anyway, that doesn't need Hyper-V in the first place.)

I'm just concerned with the UEFI causing issues, or is that actually a non-issue now and I'm just finding outdated info like trying to use a 50 year old auto-repair manual to fix a car with fuel injection?

[Ysh]

I'm just concerned with the UEFI causing issues, or is that actually a non-issue now and I'm just finding outdated info like trying to use a 50 year old auto-repair manual to fix a car with fuel injection?

I think this is no longer so new. And even then, I think I have never see a system that do not have some legacy mode, though I do not look at many system!

[VDZ]

For the most recent stuff, Ubuntu is a very popular distro nowadays. If you value stability and maintainability over having the latest features, Debian (on which Ubuntu is based) is still the usual choice. Both are actively maintained (though Debian is slow to implement new features in main releases) and shouldn't have any major issues. If you want to do graphically intensive stuff (e.g. gaming) you might have some trouble with graphics drivers (as that has always been a problem in Linux) and if I'm not mistaken there's still a chance of wireless networking not working out of the box (though wired always works fine). And naturally, for dual booting you'll need to install Linux AFTER you install Windows, as Windows doesn't give a shit about other OSes and won't install a proper OS selection menu (but most Linux distros including Ubuntu and Debian will properly give you a choice between Linux and Windows on startup which IIRC can be configured to default to Windows if you want by editing a config file).

[Ysh]

If you want to do graphically intensive stuff (e.g. gaming) you might have some trouble with graphics drivers

I have no issue with performance of driver on Debian, but I am using nonfree proprietary driver (NVIDIA card). Open source nouveau driver, which is only one you have by default, have very bad performance for me.

And naturally, for dual booting you'll need to install Linux AFTER you install Windows, as Windows doesn't give a shit about other OSes and won't install a proper OS selection menu (but most Linux distros including Ubuntu and Debian will properly give you a choice between Linux and Windows on startup which IIRC can be configured to default to Windows if you want by editing a config file).

This is true, but I think only relevant if you will install both operating system on same physical drive. If you have separate drive for each system then you can use BIOS boot order to select which disk to load from.

[shubla]

Ubuntu is bad. One should use arch linux. Does not matter if you are unskilled with linux, there is plenty of high-quality guides and things for arch linux, and an excellent wiki.
For ubuntu, there are no such things.

[shubla]

For arch linux there is also plenty of software available to install very easily. So far there has not been a single software that I could not install from official repos or AUR.

[ricky]

You could always install some distro onto a USB flash drive and boot from that. 32-64gb flash drives are available for relatively cheap nowadays.

For one of my classes I ended up running centOS on VMware using my crappy (6gb ram) laptop. Both free. granted, I wasnt doing any intensive work on either windows or the virtual machine while both were running, but both ran.