Microsoft's latest security update has ruined dual-boot Windows and Linux PCs
theverge.comDupe: “Something has gone seriously wrong,” dual-boot systems warn after MS update (arstechnica.com) 54 points by WaitWaitWha 11 hours ago | 45 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41310217
If anyone is reading this before clicking through to the article, I recommend clicking through to the arstechnica link as it does not feature a god awful cookie popup like the link for this thread does.
Dual-booters are a hardy folk. They'll persevere. I had the distinct pleasure recently of creating a Windows install USB without using Windows to create it. Damn near impossible.
How did you do it? Having trouble with this right now
I used Ventoy. It's a free tool you "install" on your USB drive. Once installed, you can drag and drop one or more iso images to the drive and when you boot from the Ventoy USB drive you simply choose which installer you want to run. Windows installers will work automatically when you choose them and select the wimboot option. You can add as many installers as you want. Very awesome tool. For Linux, there's a GUI server shell script you can run to help you install Ventoy to the USB drive.
Yeah it broke my Linux Mint. I run mint all day while developing and then switch to windows 11 to game every once in a while.
I think there's a way to fix it but I had to disable secure boot to work this week.
I've had way more issues with windows 11 than with linux Mint. Like way more.
As a former dual-booter, there's surprisingly few games that still require Windows. You might consider going full Linux.
I have consider it and done it before. I largely play StarCraft 2 and I simply want the maximum frame rate..I've played sc2 on Linux before but I kinda like the simplicity of just booting into windows, the feeling of having the max performance, and also some games I play do run anti cheat stuff that doesn't work on Linux.
Overall Linux gaming is pretty sweet tho I agree. Lutris is incredible.
Plus I like the work/play divide that booting into windows provides
I was shocked by your comment, but I also haven't kept up with PC gaming in recent years. Wow, incredible the progress Valve has made https://www.protondb.com/explore?sort=releaseDate
The only games I still have windows around for are sim racing (with wheel support). Maybe someday we’ll get those in Linux too.
The issue are the surrounding things. Need a mod? Windows only. Need a software with macros? Windows. Need a save editor to avoid having to replay the game for a missed item? Windows.
It will catch up though. I'm a happy user of the steam deck
I would say the opposite. Surprisingly many games still require Windows, at least on Steam. I can sometimes find something interesting that runs on a Linux too, but all the indie games are usually Windows only.
You're talking Native support. But go to settings in Steam and look for "Steam Play will automatically install compatibility tools that allow you to play games from your library that were built for other operating systems. Enable Steam Play for supported titles". Here's the list of how well they all work https://www.protondb.com/explore
Even most unsupported titles work. You can enable the setting to allow running unsupported games with proton as well. If a game doesnt work, you can refund it with "it doesnt run on Linux" as a reason. Of all the games Ive tried, only had to do that for three.
Worth trying, thanks! It would be nice to get rid of Windows 11 on laptop, because Ubuntu works much better for other stuff than games. (Development)
They probably run good with steams' windows emulation layer
I keep a W11 drive in my system (separate drive from my main linux system) for games and I find I haven't booted into it in months.
And I know when I do it'll take probably an hour to get all the updates out of its system. Ugh.
Is dual booting still a thing? I haven’t seen anyone doing it in 20 years.
<waves hand>
I have an Intel NUC that has it's original Windows (10) install on it's internal spinning rust drive, and Ubuntu on it's NVME SSD (and a pair of USB drives in software Raid 1)
It's the Windows box I keep around for odd but specific tasks like the running the 3D wing and airfoil simulation software I have, or the CNC mill firmware update tool that only runs Windows. It's also got a few Windows only 3D modelling tools and GCode creation tools that I occasionally need for the laser cutter or CNC mill or one of the 3D printers.
99.9% of it's time is spent booted into Linux running Emby and PiHole and Home Bridge and doing file server duties.
Why would it stop being a thing?
I've had dual-booted until a couple of years ago, when i decided to ditch Windows for good, since i wasn't playing videogames, and the few i may wanted to play were playable on Steam. If i had needed Windows for a specific videogame or program, i would still be dual-booting today.
Well... your comment has both the question and an answer: It's quite possible that fewer people bother dual-booting because it's less needed; as WINE/proton gets better and more programs have native Linux support, the need to have a Windows install on hand diminishes.
> Why would it stop being a thing?
Virtualization?
I just realised writing another response, that a large portion of the reasons I need to run Windows occasionally if to use weird hardware that's windows specific. Things that run odd USB protocols, our even worse require a USB-serial converter with a specific chipset.
For me, it's way easier to keep a "hardware Windows machine" available than to debug why these things don't quite work right in a virtualised environment every time I need to use em.
I just realized that SSDs are sorta 3 1/2" floppy size. I picture turning off the machine, and popping one out of a caddy for another.
The circle is vlosed.
ICY DOCK has you covered. it's kind of their thing.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0040Z924Q
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084H5ZKPT
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B9HK4QG
at only $1.72 per gram, it's the greatest bargain in the computer market today.
That's huge, even though I've used some ICY products in the past.
I just meant, if the SSD was slid in and out, bare, by itself.. it would feel like a floppy experience.
ICY DOCK can accommodate even the most sophisticated and discerning tastes… ;)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LZJNR91
(really they do one thing and it's this. They practically have a corner on the “aftermarket hotswap drive bay accessory” market, and they have more variations than anyone can imagine :V )
Honestly I would love to try the "hotswap M.2 bay" or "hotswap U.2 bay" things, but it really does drive home how uneven the NVMe future is. Consumers get maybe two NVMes on their motherboard, meanwhile you need 16 pcie lanes to drive a 4-bay hotswap thing. We live in a society where a 1-socket server might have 24 nvme bays attached to it and yet consumers can't even populate an addon bay for their gamer case. (bottom text)
really does drive home the lack of pcie lanes on consumer stuff (given how much pcie continues to be the defacto standard for high-speed expansion) and the death of the "workstation"/"HEDT" segment as being a relatively accessible thing. Nowadays there are client machines and servers, and precious little in-between. You almost might as well just buy an Epyc (ROMED8-2T looks really nice) or just buy a used server as a backend/fileserver/NAS.
That's awesome. Thanks!
That's what killed dual booting for me circa 07/08.
Just run windows in a VM if you need it for anything.
My computer is not very powerful. Running games or resource-demanding programs on a virtualized Windows would be a significantly worse experience than running them on a bare-metal OS.
I don't think anyone is booting grub or refind in a way that you would notice on public.
People are doing this a lot on handhelds like rog ally and others systems to flip between windoze-only games and those that work under Bazzite or other steam deck-ish distributions fine for improved performance and frame rates over windoze. Usually the DRM-laden vermin require windoze still, most everything else works ok enough with proton in linux now.
I also keep windoze in as minimal space as I can using linux full-time to update lenovo firmware on my tb4 dock and system periodically as I've been burned with firmware updates under linux, so 128gb of a disk for windoze is usually a small sacrifice as a fallback.
Your saying some games run better under the windows emulation system than under windows itself?
Yeah, this is a thing though I wouldn’t pretend to know why. I used to get double the frame rate running World of Warcraft with WINE than I did on actual Windows. Never did dig into why.
I'd imagine the place that is going to run better on windows is GPU drivers... If the game is GPU bound it will probably always run better on windows. If the game has other bottlenecks perhaps WINE can out perform windows.
I have a triple boot setup. Every OS sucks so why not?
It doesn't hurt to have intact alternate OS's ready to go.
I might only use one Linux regularly but there's a devuan and a vanilla windows (+patches from ~1 year/6mo. ago) - it's really no big deal leaving them be. It's just disk space.
windows will probably get nuked soon cause it's on a gen4 NVME - not using that is a waste.
I did for a while in the 2010s but eventually found it too fragile and risky, started booting linux off a removable drive then eventually booting linux and just virtualizing windows, way less risky and I don't care about games so it was fine.
Quite a few people who bought windows laptops, and want to use Linux alongside in it.
I have an old Dell Latitude that I tri-boot Windows 7, 10, and 11 for testing with my PortableApps.com stuff as some things are better to test on actual hardware rather than in a virtual machine.
Why wouldn't people be dual booting in 2024? Because of WLS?
Wls, virtual box, cloud, …
Happy triple booter here - yup, it's a thing.
I have a stable/secure Linux and an experimental Linux on my trusty old T430, but I need a Windows instance for testing.
In today's sister discussion about Linux on the desktop, several commenters there claim they're dual-booting.
absolutely, its very often the gateway to a swap over.
I haven't seen it used much in the enterprise though.
yes? my preferred desktop env is linux.