I’m considering switching to linux but I’m not a computer savvy person, so I wanted to have the option to switch back to windows if unforeseen complications (I only have 1 pc). Is it just a download on usb and install? And what ways can I get the product key or “cleaner” debloated versions.
When I first wanted to try Linux out I made a small 50gb partition for it. the logic was that this was the size of just one game and it was an entire operating system, so I wasn’t losing much. As I continued to use Linux I kept expanding that partition to correspond with the priority I gave the OS.
You can install Linux on a flash drive to test it out. Or spend $50 on a SSD and just have both
It’s not the fanciest solution, but if you’re really not sure what you’re doing, not wiping out your Windows in the first place could be the best option.
I dual boot my windows and linux so I can switch between them whatever I want. Depending how you install linux, you can open or check window files on linux. But windows can’t check linux files. I kept my windows because adobe products doesn’t support linux.
Get a second SSD, install there
Yeah but make sure you disconnect your Windows SSD before doing anything.
The easiest way to preserve an existing Windows installation is to take out the drive it’s on and put in a new drive for Linux. That way if you want to go back, you can just swap in the old drive again. Installing M.2 or SATA drives is very easy and 100% doable even if you’re not an expert.
this 👆 dual boot doesn’t always work because windows can be finicky with boot partitions as well as boot partition security issues. Save yourself a headache if you want to go back, just pop your current drive out, and put it in a external case so you can access the files. Hard drives are cheap.
Why you trying to detransition?
You can keep windows and install Linux next to it.
The best way would be to add a new ssd or m.2 card to your pc and install Linux on that. Make that the main boot device and Linux normally will detect Windows and give you a boot menu where you can chose between Linux and Windows each time you boot.
Alternatively you can resize the windows partition and install Linux onto free space on your main drive. This is more fiddly and things can go wrong with this if you don’t know what you’re doing.
You can also boot Linux on an external USB drive but this will be slower and may guge you a false impression of Linux. You can also try Linux in a virtual machine like Virtualbox but again this will be slower and will give you a false impression of Linux as a daily driver OS.
I personally run a dual boot system - I have two m.2 nvme drives, one with windows and one with Linux. I barely use the windows partition now but I keep it around for rare work stuff or the rare occasion I have a game I can’t get to run in Linux. And I mean rare - booted Windows maybe 3 times in last 6 months.
I know it’s not what you’re asking but switching back is truly horrible, I have to use w11 at work and I hate every second of it. One drive shoven down your throat, Xbox stuff wants to install something everytime I update, installing stuff from random exes found on websites (I know the store exists but it sucks if your needs are not “I want to install candy crush”), changed something in your path variable? Reboot! Wtf? I really hope microsoft abandons windows in favour of its cloud apps for people who need it and lets Linux distros rule the desktop world
I used scoop as my package manager on windows. It even lets you install gnu coreutils like ls, cat and find to run in powershell.
I’m only commenting this because you said you’re stuck on Win11 and not defending it, but…
Using winget and Chocolately will make your app installation much better.
Also, to reload your path variable in a PowerShell prompt you can run the following:
$env:Path = [System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Path","Machine") + ";" + [System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Path","User")Again, your gripes are all legitimate, but these might help ease your pain.
Thanks, appreciate it!
Technically it’s easy. You just leave your Windows install where it is (assuming you have enough disk space) and it’ll be waiting there ready to embrace you again when you decide to give up on freedom and come crawling back. Psychologically it could be a challenge.
recently I have encountered a problem with this, it is indeed not so straightforward to create a bootable windows 10 USB instillation media under linux.
The media created by fedora media writer is not bootable and the media created by ventoy lacks drivers. I was then - able to create a media quite easily with the last windows machine in my household. I don’t know if they is just a temporary bug in fedora media writer or a bug in windows 10 images.
So I would suggest you to keep a windows installation media at hand in case you need to switch back, or make sure at least one of your friend has a windows machine you can borrow.
This has not been my experience. With does ISOs work fine with Ventroy and can be written to the disk with dd or gnome writer.
Hum, on retrospect, my ISO might be just corrupted. I have never tried to redownload it.
I never know gnome has a image writer tool, and would you please let me know what “dd” stands for?
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Open up gnome disks
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Find the drive (the usb drive not your boot drive)
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Click restore image
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Select the ISO
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Click next and start
Wait for the grass to grow. Once it is done either eject it or run the sync command.
You also can use the dd is a command line utility. Keep in mind it doesn’t have any safety protections and can blow though important data in the blink of an eye
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Υou can download the Windows iso, burn it in a usb stick before you nuke it to install linux, and find free legal serial numbers online (there are various serials for all versions of win10/11, all legal – it’s considered semi-activated with these).
massgrave.dev
burn it in a usb stick before you nuke it to install linux
This is very very important unless you have another windows computer around. Took me a whole day to figure out how to properly burn a windows install USB from linux. It isn’t straightforward.
There’s a very good chance the key is stored in the EFI, making this the absolute easiest part. I’d just make sure to get the Windows installer on a USB stick before installing Linux, if there aren’t any other Windows machines around. And also make sure I have a wifi/ethernet driver available before reinstalling Windows, if it comes to that. It can be tricky to install Windows without network, these days, and even if you get past that (which I’d recommend, to bypass a Microsoft account), you still need it once you’re in the installed OS.
If the device ran Windows before the key is stored in hardware
You can just install Windows without a product key.
Just buy a new SSD to install Linux on. If you decide to switch back just plug the old one in.
Do a dual boot, that’s what I did. If after some time you feel like the windows partition is unnecessary, delete it. If after deletion it suddenly seems to become necessary, it is always possible to reinstall windows, there are tutorials online on how to do that.
If you want to test out Linux, try running a virtual machine instead. There are a few good free software programs to do this. VirtualBox used to be a good option. It’s a free and harmless way to dive into Linux.
So I will get some flack from this I am sure but my daily drivers since about 2004 are Linux I have always had a Mac laptop up to a few years ago in that time frame and Windows work laptops.
Honestly Windows 11 has a lot of nice creature features that KDE has had for a while and with WSL I can use a lot of my Linux commands. Can tell you how many times I have used egrep for things along with having native ssh built in. Powershell is a very powerful shell language especially if you want to go down the .Net rabbit hole but that’s not usually needed
Still my main desktop is Debian stable with distrobox for apps I need more modern versions of. But it’s not hard to switch back and forth
