I’m looking to finally use Linux properly and I’m planning to dual boot my laptop. There’s enough storage to go around, and while I’m comfortable messing around I’d rather not have to run and buy a new device before school while fixing my current one.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VaIgbTOvAd0
This was the general guide I was planning to follow, just with KDE Plasma (or another KDE). I was going to keep windows the default, and boot into Linux as needed when I had time to learn and practice.
I assume it should be the near similar process for KDE Plasma?
I’m ok with things going wrong with the Linux install, but I’d like to keep the Windows install as safe as possible.
You can leave on secure boot nowadays if you install and configure the sbctl package. It can use the Windows secure boot method, and you’ll have a successful dual boot deployment.
Good to know
Do I need to turn it off initially and re-enable it after?
I’m a little unsure of when secure boot becomes a problem
For a distribution like Fedora, it’s usually not required to turn off secure boot. You’ll know if it’s needed when booting the install USB, as it’ll give a “security policy” (or similar) warning.
Other things of note when dual booting are Windows “Fast Boot” and “Hibernation” features, which can put hardware in a state where it is unusable from Linux. Turning those off in Windows can fix things like your network interface not working. Windows also stores the time in a different way than Linux, if you are in a non-utc timezone, setting up NTP (automatically syncing date and time) on both Windows and Linux can help.
This is solid advice.
Only thing I would add is if you use a different OS that doesn’t support secure boot during install, go ahead and disable it. After you install linux, then go through the sbctl setup, and it’ll tell you when you should re-enable secure boot.
Thank you!
For me this didnt do anything. You need to reboot, and when the screen is black, force kill by pressing the power button. Lol Windows.
There also is a specific shutdown command with some parameters to force that. You can create a .bat file on your Desktop and use that to really shutdown your PC.
Thank you!
Thats what I thought. Secure boot normally needs a distro signed by damn Microsoft. This only applies for official Ubuntu spins and Fedora. Maybe some others. But the distro can create its own secureboot entry once running, and then you can enable it again.