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this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
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No Stupid Questions
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You have two options: create a new partition and dual boot, or run a virtual machine on windows to try it. The VM solution is the easiest, but it's also a bit slower.
A VM is the best option for getting started. If you mess it up, you can just delete it and start over. Dual boot can be problematic because Windows actively tries to sabotage that. Another great way to get started is to find any old machine that you can just wipe and install Linux on.
Hi, not OP. May i ask, can you briefly expand a little bit about windows trying to sabotage a dual boot? Since when is this happening? I remember having a dual boot some 7 years ago, but can't remember any sabotage issues. Is this because of the now enforced bios updates and such?
With windows 10/11 after most updates you will get your boot partition overwritten... At least that's what I read on different forums. I haven't used windows on my personal PC for over 15 years.
There are all kinds of issues that are being reported after Windows updates. In my opinion it just isn't worth the hassle. I tried dual booting for a while but I quickly got fed up. I absolutely would not recommend it for a beginner.
I recently replaced my laptop and would like to try mint on the old one. How would i go about wiping windows and installing Linux? I'm not super the savvy, but i am a quick study...
When you install Mint, it'll deal with deleting windows on its own.
Installing it will be broken down mostly into:
A much better guide (with pictures!) is https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Thanks!
"Explaining Computers" is a great YouTube channel that covers Linux quite a lot. I think he recently did a video about installing Linux Mint. There's plenty of this stuff around. Just search "installing your-distro-of-choice"and you'll get plenty of content. I'd suggest watching a few of those before getting started.
Appreciate it
Underneath it was said that Mint will "deal with deleting windows". What it really does is ask "do you want to use the whole hard drive?"
If you say "yes", it will erase windows and whatever else was on the hard drive, including any photos and documents and such. Which you can of course copy on a USB stick beforehand.
Yep, x2.
Windows will get an update and actively fuck up your boot loader, if not worse.
Windows is like a petulant child that can't be allowed to do group play with other kids, without constant supervision.
Bare metal dual booting is not worth it.
Do i need any additional physical materials to do that like burning the installer to a disc or putting it on some bootable drive or something or can it all be done from the Windows side as is?
Based on your questions I would recommend the VM route. For that you don't need any physical devices. You need to check if your hardware supports virtualization first.
Look up WSL2. You may have to enable it first, but it comes with Windows. It will be slower than running Linux on a dual boot, as you're running Windows along with the virtual OS. Maybe faster than on a USB.
Like another commenter said, look into Ventoy. You install it on a USB stick, and then you can just copy over ISOs of different distros to try out and choose which one to run at boot time. AFAIK all Linux distros have a Live option to run the OS off a USB without installing it to your hard drive.
You should make a ventoy USB and install a few different distros on it so you can try them out and choose one you like the feeling of.
Then you use the live image to shrink your Windows partition, install your chosen distro on the remaining space, and Bob's your uncle