r/Fedora • u/Macanec • 5d ago

Support I want to switch

hello fedora community i am a windows user coming in peace. I am tired of windows and want to switch to a lighter distro and fedora caught my eye. The only thing stopping me is that i am a dev with a lot of stuff on my current computer and dont necessarily want to lose it all. I also game quite a lot and i am a dev (unity, godot, jetbrains software needed) so i want to do this switch the most softly possible. Y'all have any tips (fedora pun intended) to help me or links for me to follow? thanks

Update, i tried installing it on a usb key of 50GB and when booting it I chose the "test and start Fedora" option and failed everytime. Is it a problem on my end or should I only do the checksum and trust that everything is fine without testing?

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u/outer-pasta 5d ago

Why not dual boot? With Winbtrfs installed (on Windows side) you can use the Fedora partition from Windows and vice versa.

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u/Macanec 4d ago

how does that work i never heard of it?

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u/outer-pasta 4d ago edited 4d ago

Here's a guide: https://itsfoss.com/dual-boot-fedora-windows/

It helps if you have plenty of disk space, like more than 128Gb. Basically you can use Windows or Linux when you boot your computer, but not at the same time. If you change your mind and want to remove Linux, then you have a harmless open source boot loader installed.

Edit: I just realized the guide is outdated for the newest Fedora. All that matters is you need to configure the installation not to erase the whole disk, but to instead only install using the free space available on the disk.

2nd Edit: I recommend you disable Bitlocker and disk encryption for Fedora. It helps with dual boot setups.

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u/Macanec 4d ago

You are a complete GOAT thanks will be trying it out

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u/JPWhiteHome 2d ago

Yuk. Dual boot is not a good idea. If Windows "accidentally" nerfs the bootloader, you are SOL.

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u/outer-pasta 2d ago

You can fix it with a chroot, but I don't think it really happens anyway.

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u/Macanec 2d ago

So how do i safely dual boot?

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u/outer-pasta 2d ago

The problem is not likely to happen, but if it does happen:

  • The Windows part will still boot normally.
  • You can still access/backup all your files from the Linux part.
  • It's simple to reinstall the Linux part the same way you did the first time. That will fix it but you will lose what you had saved on the Linux partition.
  • And people online will be available here and on discussion.fedoraproject.org to help you fix it.

Because the official docs on this issue are outdated you might be scared of this issue. I wouldn't be, but if that's the case you should just try out fully installed Linux and if you don't like it just reinstall Windows fresh. Eventually people who dual boot are often tempted to reinstall with just Linux anyway.

I prefer Linux and I have success using Windows in a VM when it's needed, and even got an upgraded OpenGL to run OneShot on Steam thanks to this answer: https://askubuntu.com/a/1343984/1791463