Hi. I’ve not really used Windows since the early 2000. Even then not much.

I have a single mini PC with windows on. And use it only for device firmware updates. As a ham radio nerd. You get many devices that can only be modified via windows.

Anyway it was set up with dual boot the normal way. Windows first as it came with it. Then make a real Linux partition to use the PC on my boat while travelling.

Now the issue is I am upgrading the Mini PC. Basically replacing memory and the tiny 128gb ssd. So need to install it all from scratch.

I have order a copy of windows 11 from ebay. (At a price I consider acceptable for the crap)

But its going to take several days to arrive. And I would like to be more efficient.

So I am hoping folks can advice me on the best way to set up the PC with Linux first then install Windows 11 later. Knowing windows has a habit of messing up grub etc.

  • YurkshireLad
    6·
    4 months ago

    Do you have room for 2 SSDs in the case? If so, install windows on one and Linux on the other. Then set the BIOS to boot from the Linux disk and grub will let you decide which OS to boot from. This way, windows won’t interfere with Linux.

    I’ve been using this for months and it works well. Except when I hit a Debian bug that configured grub to not look for OSes on other drives! But that was fixed.