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.
Fedora w/ kde was my first foray into linux and i can say it was a good place to start for a windows convertee. +1
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.
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.
Hi, I appreciate that you consider to dump the bloatware. I recently installed Ubuntu 24.04, and also Ubuntu 25.10. And, unfortunately, I have to say, both versions have installation issues on my computer. In the installer, when I select erase disk and install with LVM, the installer crashes and isn’t able to recover.
Also after the installation, I have graphic issues with the steam interface (only shows up when I run it from terminal) and sometimes the brave browser (snap version) just closes and nothing else happens.
As different distribution, I tried only cachy OS. Similar problems there. Not sure if my AMD CPU is not compatible with the AMD GPU I recently bought… hmm… Thought the AMD drivers were already built-in in the kernel…
Well, to sum it up, I have problems with Linux I didn’t have half a year ago, and it may be hardware related. So expect to try some bugfixing… Good luck.
I remember dealing with similar issues with steam and snap versions of apps on my desktop with amd ryzen and radeon vii. I had to kinda go out of the way to make things work like what you said having to run steam from terminal. Everything ended up working I just had to do it the roundabout way and that was using Ubuntu 22.
I completed the install of Ubuntu 24 on my laptop earlier today and I used zfs instead of lvm and I’ve had absolutely no issues all day. I’ve installed all the apps I need and have been testing everything out with no problems. Also during the install I had it download the proprietary nvidia drivers which I’m assuming helped. Only problem I had was a crash while playing arc raiders but that could happen anytime using anything
I assumed the worst when it came down to swapping over to Linux on the laptop and to my surprise its been the easiest time I’ve ever had.
It’s possible you might have to disable secureboot in your bios
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
