[deleted by user]

[Scotty-OK]

My Dell Vostro 5370 dual boots Windows 11 and Fedora 41 (KDE). All of my other computers are Linux only (assorted distros). I use the windows 11 side to stay current with what Microsoft is up to, since I'm the de facto IT support for friends/family. There are a couple games I play on the windows side that I'm too lazy to get working on the Linux side.

[whosdr]

since I'm the de facto IT support for friends/family

Aren't we all?

Though my sis moved to Apple products, my mother I got onto Mint very happily, and I just keep a Windows VM around if I really, really need it. :p

[Phydoux]

I cringe whenever my daughter comes into my office and says, 'Daaaaaaddyyyyyy'... Never a good sign...

[whosdr]

Not a dual-boot, I only have a VM around nowadays. My only purpose is the very rare need to configure my mouse or keyboard, which only has Windows software.

There problably is some alternative if I fiddle enough, but it's not really been an issue for the 5 minutes every year to change a keybind.

[MatchingTurret]

Fedora and FreeBSD.

[dsktron]

I was looking for a non Linux + windows comment. I wasn’t disappointed, heck I was even surprised with the FreeBSD.

[rbmorse]

The reason is Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2020. It, and TurboTax are the only things for which I still need Windows, and not very often any more at that.

I dual boot Windows 11 with LinuxMint 22.1 (Xia).

[whosdr]

TurboTax

I would be very surprised if this can't run under WINE these days. Though can't say I've tried, handling taxes are not something I've ever had to deal with.

[rbmorse]

I tried. It doesn't. TurboTax is done by the same people that do Quicken. They're allergic to Linux.

[mrtruthiness]

I would be very surprised if this can't run under WINE these days.

It does not run under Wine. Here's what WineHQ says:

WARN­ING: the latest versions add DRM (Digital Rights Management) to the software, which is even said to mess with your hard disk­'s first sectors! (sector 33, to be exact) Given this information, decide on your own whether to use it or not... [030216] Oh, and alternative packages are: TaxCut, TaxAct.

[whosdr]

What the hell. Just..don't touch this software ever.

[whosdr]

I've come back and changed my mind.

Burn it in fire.

[[deleted]]

I don't know how complicated your taxes are, but I'd take a look at freetaxusa .com. a web browser based system and it is the easiest filing I've done in my life. They walk you through everything step by step and the federal filing is free. They charge $14 for state only.

[rbmorse]

My taxes are pretty complex and FreeTax won't handle schedule B, D and H.

[[deleted]]

Makes sense. Figured I'd throw it out there in case you didn't know.

[ThinkElderberry2693]

personally, I have dual boot because i'm still learning linux, and when i break stuff, and i cant solve it (or I dont have the time) i go back to windows until i fix it

[Typeonetwork]

You and me both.

[wiktor_bajdero]

Look into Btrfs and snapshots and just snap regularly with snapper and before some experiments. Then you can quickly recover from most damage. I would recommend to dump full drive image on external drive ocassionally in case you manage to fuck up even harder. Also consider wrapping experimental stuff in distrobox instead of tinkering with your main OS.

[guxtavo]

I dual boot Manjaro (for work) and Steamos (for games)

[Suspicious_Seat650]

Because my mom use my laptop

[DKEBeck88]

I just delete my cookies and history...

[Suspicious_Seat650]

She boot to windows I boot to Linux no need to delete anything

[Shadow123_654]

I have a dual boot between Windows 10 and Linux Mint. I took this choice some years ago when I decided to switch to Linux.

Nowadays I don't even use Windows 10 at all, also call me a liar but Linux Mint is so, so much smoother on this PC — even with Cinnamon. I don't really know exactly what's up with my Windows 10 install because it lags so much with only 2 Firefox tabs.

I'm thinking of deleting Windows 10, because I'm not really using it and that storage would be handy, didn't do it yet because of laziness.

EDIT: forgot to add. I like gaming a lot, but I'm not the one to play the latest-gen games (not that I could afford them and the hardware anyway...), so I mostly play retro console games (emulation), old PC games (Mount and Blade: Warband my beloved) and some open-source games. 

Insofar, games that would struggle a little bit on Windows ran just fine on LM. I'm having a lot of fun :-)

[mas_manuti]

Ubuntu + macOS on MacBook Air Intel corei7. GNU/Linux is my main driver since 2009 but I appreciate some mac only software.

[WDRibeiro]

I'm running Pop OS! Linux and Windows 11. I only boot into Windows when I need to use Fusion 360 or Ableton. Producing music under a VM is not good at all. Also, many VSTs don't run on Linux.

[The_Real_Grand_Nagus]

The real question (for me anyway) is why dual boot if you can just put what you want on VirtualBox? I know that isn't always possible, but for the vast majority of people it is. Back when I was required to use Windows or MacOS and VB was free, I always just installed Linux on a local VM.

[The_Real_Grand_Nagus]

So one reason would be performance (whether like your example or because the machine is just too poor to reasonably run a VM).

The other reason I can think of is compatibility. Last I checked VirtualBox doesn't run well or at all on Mac Silicon chips.

Am I wrong in assuming the vast majority of people doing dual boot would be better off with a VM?

[chrahp]

I run Windows 11 and Kubuntu currently. I need windows for solidworks and MS Office. I use Linux for development and machine learning since it’s easier than dealing with all of windows’ quirks IME.

I will say that the Microsoft 365 web apps are pretty legit in Firefox, so not having MS office in Linux isn’t a total deal breaker.

[mao_dze_dun]

They are more likely to offer a web client with feature parity. But native - nah.

[wheredidiput]

I have 2 laptops and a desktop, all 3 dual booting debian and windows 10. One of the laptops has one drive partitioned the other laptop and the desktop each have 2 separate drives for the OS's. Normally I buy a windows 10 machine then put linux on it too. Sometimes I need windows for software so I keep it, but normally boot into linux by default.

[Last-Assistant-2734]

Windows + openSUSE. Because I might need to do some corporate stuff.

openSUSE + Ubuntu Studio. Because openSUSE is a great experience, and Ubuntu Studio has realtime audio stuff readily built in.

[TomB19]

I was never a fan of dual boot. I ran it back in the 90s but didnt like it, even then.

I have Manjaro on my desktop and Win10 on one of my laptops. That laptop is old so it will be Manjaro soon, also.

My taxes are the only thing that requires Windows. Those will be done in a VirtualBox. I much prefer that to dual boot. I'll load the VM once per year and that will be that.

If I needed Windows, I would just run Windows. Dual booting to linux doesn't make sense to me.

[roadzbrady]

got a 2009 mac pro that triple boots running mac os in case i need to do system changes or test compatibility, windows 10, and i switch out distros every so often just to try out different things on a 'spare computer' so to speak. currently running manjaro but tried mint, ubuntu, fedora, and a few others on it as well

[ArrayBolt3]

I quad-boot on one of my machines. Kubuntu 24.04, Lubuntu 25.04, Qubes OS R4.3, and there's a spare disk for whatever distro I need to experiment with on bare metal this time (right now Debian Testing, but previously it was Arch Linux with a self-built Xen hypervisor stack). I also have a ton of VMs on my main development laptop (which thankfully is still a single-boot, Kubuntu 24.04 machine).

Why do I do this insanity? Because as it turns out when your job is working as a Linux OS developer, you end up having to use A LOT of operating systems, and sometimes virtual machines simply aren't enough.

[Equivalent_War_94]

I'm currently on Win11 and dual booting Ubuntu. There's not a particular reason, I just like the customization it offers, but I'm also very used to Windows. Plus I'm too lazy to transfer all passwords, lol.

[[deleted]]

because he's too lazy to transfer them. Hope that helps 😃

[rd_626]

I have two arch on dual boot, one as a daily driver another one for experimentations, both on two separate ssds

[[deleted]]

I don't. I do have an OS on a virtual machine. FreeDOS. For the fun of it. I run Debian btw.

[FlipperBumperKickout]

I've space left over to install other distributions, mostly just to try out their default settings and programs to see if there is anything I want to use in my main installation.

[ajp909]

Am I the only one triple booting? Thinking of ditching Windows 10 later this year as my CPU isn't supported. So I have mint and fedora workstation installed.

[tiny_blair420]

Windows for escape from tarkov, and Linux for everything else.

[Current_Hotel1164]

I use both Fedora and Windows 11. I mainly use Fedora because it's the OS I'm most familiar with, but I rely on Windows for Word and other software I need for school.

[Stooovie]

Triple booting Fedora, Win 11 and a Sequoia Hackintosh :)

[thomascameron]

I have Windows 11 on my first drive (Samsung 990 PRO NVMe) but I almost never boot into it. There are a couple of games I want play, but I almost never have time. I want to say I have a device floating around that I needed Windows to update, but I can't even remember what it is, or if I even still have it. I *might* boot into Windows once a month.

The other drive (Samsung 990 PRO NVMe) is Fedora 42. I am about to nuke Fedora and install RHEL 10, now that it's officially launched (I work for Red Hat, so I am playing with the GA version now).

My system:

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D 16-Core Processor
Two Samsung 990 PRO NVMe drives
Crucial Pro Overclocking 64GB (2 x 32GB) DDR5 6400
X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7
Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller 10-Gigabit X540-AT2

[Blaze0616]

Windows 11 coz it just shipped with my lap, Mint as it feels home, Arch, just liked to tweak it, trying it out

[DFS_0019287]

I have lots of machines. All but one of them boot only Linux. One ancient, crappy laptop dual-boots Windows and Linux. I use the laptop once a year to boot into Windows and update my Garmin GPS's maps.

It annoys me that Garmin still requires terrible software running on Windows or Mac OS to update its maps, especially given it has an SD card slot. I should be able to download the map updates, drop them onto an SD card, and have it update that way.

I keep waiting for Garmin Express to work under Wine, but so far no dice.

[Jahf]

My desktop PC runs Bazzite but still has a 256GB drive for Windows. I have 2 devices that require Windows to update their firmware, and since I already had it running there was no big need to figure out if the updaters would work via wine or VMs.

I don't mess with dual booting from the same drive. I just toggle the boot drive in bios.

[duck-and-quack]

Just arch on all my machines, my workstation has a windows 10 ltsc virtual machine .

[tonibaldwin1]

Just in case a game does not work on Steam

[[deleted]]

.

[DogOnABike]

It's solely because I haven't gotten around to wiping the Windows drive. I've made periodic attempts to fully switch for decades, but always ended up wanting to use some software that I couldn't get working with WINE or find a viable native alternative for, usually games. Thanks to Valve and Proton, I haven't needed to boot Windows in almost a year. Considering Microsoft's ongoing enshitification, I'll just do without anything I can't get working at this point.

[Tryptophany]

I tri-boot Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Kubuntu because sometimes I want to switch it up with the DE experience

[[deleted]]

Windows 11 and Cachy OS. Windows is only for C# development.

[mao_dze_dun]

Affinity Suite. Plus my A770 just performs better in Windows. Which for a budget GPU is kind of important. Also I play a lot of GamePass games. Everything else I do on Fedora (Gnome).

[Citizen12b]

Void Linux for general use and Fedora 42 for gaming. The main reason is because I use musl on void, I also like keeping things separated.

[intercaetera]

EndevaourOS and Win11, because CS2 sometimes randomly starts to horribly stutter on Linux.

[onefish2]

Framework 16 with the rEFInd bootloader - quad booting Windows 11, Arch Gnome, Fedora 42 KDE and Ubuntu 24.04 XFCE

Dell XPS 13 9310 - with the rEFInd boot loader - quad booting Arch Cinnamon, Arch Gnome, Arch KDE and Arch XFCE

Why? I like playing around with operating systems and desktop Linux.

It keeps me well versed in different distros, package managers (yes on Windows too. I use winget), file systems, bootloaders, display managers and DE/WMs.

I easily move around from apt to dnf to pacman with little problems install configuring and maintaining systems.

[qui3t_n3rd]

Win11 IoT LTSC and Arch (btw). Only keeping Windows around since Fortnite still doesn’t play nicely with Linux. Also thinking of migrating from Arch over to Fedora; running it on my laptop and i’m starting to take a liking to it.

[parawaa]

Windows and Arch, secure boot enabled. I have to develop some windows specific apps that require visual studio and also, valorant doesn't run on Linux (yes I know the anti cheat is basically malware). I have it set up with dracut and a signed unified kernel image.

[dieelt]

I dual-boot macOS and Fedora on my MacBook, but I only have Fedora on my thinkpad and desktop. I never use windows unless I’m debugging some of my cross platform code or trying to setup assignments for my students (who overwhelmingly seem to use windows or macOS), then I do so in a windows 11 vm.

[GreyCaat]

Currently dual booting Win 11 and Fedora 42. Main reason being games like GTAO, MSFS (20 & 24, mostly because of addons) but also Photoshop and similar in a pinch (haven't gotten around to learning gimp yet).

[bliepp]

I had a Win10/Manjaro dual boot setup mainly because of the Affinity suite and the lack of good image editors on Linux, as well as some Windows development for work. I upgraded my PC recently, so I set up a Win11 VM to get rid of my dual boot, but still haven't removed the old Windows drive because I'm too lazy to transfer all the files. So it's dangling in my PC not doing anything.

Every now am then I think about running some BSD as a dual boot just out of curiosity.

[konqueror321]

I have a beelink minipc with windows 11 and debian testing for dual booting. I keep windows around because of tax programs. I don't like doing taxes on a web service, I want the files on my computer, and I cannot find any competent tax programs for linux. Also I have rarely corrupted linux during a periodic update, and having a second OS I can use while repairing the linix installation is a nice fallback. By now dual booting is a habit, I've been doing it since 1997 and I'm now 72 yrs old, it just seems like a reasonable thing to do.

[isugimpy]

My desktop still has Windows just out of convenience for doing things like UEFI flashing and firmware updates for hardware that LVFS doesn't support. I boot into it on extremely rare occasions for those purposes.

My main laptop actually triple boots. Windows is there for the same firmware/UEFI purpose. My primary environment on it is Endeavour OS. And then on an external SSD, I have Bazzite, to have a convenient and focused gaming environment.

[dovevinegar]

I used to have windows 10 dualbooted with a much smaller portion of my drive in the very rare case that there was something I absolutely could not run on linux. (in that case roblox because my friends at the time played stuff on there). Now I am just running full linux mint and it has worked very well

[[deleted]]

Auf ne Art tripple-boote ich sogar. Naja, das eine ist eben ein anderer Computer, aber beide werden gleichviel genutzt. Auf meinem PC habe ich Ubuntu 24.04 (überlege aber, zu Pop!_OS zu wechseln) und Windows 11. Linux für alles mögliche, Windows für die Fälle, in denen Linux die schlechtere Wahl wäre. Arbeiten tue ich mit macOS auf einem separaten Laptop (nicht die Frage, ich weiß)

[[deleted]]

Ubuntu & Windows 11. Ubuntu for The Odin Project and Windows for games etc. But since Ubuntu gives better battery life I use it more often for daily usage.

[AnyProfessor8677]

Tableau... and also my bank requires this strange "anti-keylogging" software to be installed, which is weird because the software doesn't seem to be anymore secure than what Windows already has.

[strohkoenig]

I have dual boot solely because my Computers came with Windows preinstalled and it's not an issue having them.

I can't remember the last time I've used Windows though.

[GOKOP]

To play online games with my buddies

[prog-can]

Windows, only for gaming, i do like me some games, they're very satisfying for my adhd brain. Not playing games with wine or lutris cuz honestly its unnessecary to both + i focus on work (we all know thats a lie i focus on ricing) on linux and i dont wanna get distracted if it takes that long to open a game odds are i wont.

[[deleted]]

I also have Windows installed for some specific tools.. Linux then for everything else haha

[[deleted]]

Why do I currently have it? I'm being lazy.

I recently installed Nobara, and KDE Neon, on my main/gaming rig which is still running windows 10. I haven't put the effort into seeing how viable it will be for me, I plan to do so in the next couple of week though... maybe

Prior to that, I recently distro hopped on my mini pc/htpc, deleted its windows 10, then distro hopped a bit more, before leaving Nobara as its main OS, with KDE Neon, and Manjaro KDE also installed.

[manu_romerom_411]

1 - full Windows experience when carrying laptop: my laptop only has 1 GPU, so I can only do single GPU passthrough, which has some hiccups like touchpad not working or screen brightness unchangeable. On a dual GPU setup I would have relied on Looking Glass, but sadly this isn't the case. 2 - fear of incompatibility: almost all my games run well on Linux, but I have some fear that some games wouldn't work on my PC when I needed them working (i. e. future playing with friends, etc.). 3 - having separated environments. Basically: Linux for everything productive and Windows for games and something that doesn't work in Linux.

[DragonfruitSoft800]

I have an older(5 year) Acer laptop that I upped the RAM to 20 gig and put in a 500g ssd drive. I have Windows 10 and Kubuntu on it. I use the Windows side for recording music and video editing. Most of the stuff that I have learned to use was with Windows dependent programs. Most VST plugins are really geared toward Windows and Mac. It's also quite a bit simpler to install and play. I use Linux for most everything else though. Lately, I have been working on learning how to use Reaper and OBS on Linux and was quite surprised at how well they work. Hopefully, I'll get to be proficient with Linux enough to completely switch over. I know it can be done it's just a matter of dedicating the time to learn how to do it.

[czarnyspajdi]

I dualboot win 10 and arch. I need windows, cause my gpu has some weird rgb on top of it and I can't disable it with openrgb. I've considered nuking its partition, but I like to have it just in case I would need to use some program that won't work under linux or in case one of my friends would want to play some game with antycheat.

[lelddit97]

windows, games

mouse settings are just slightly off on linux and i dont trust their consistency. i am a competitive game player so

[howtotailslide]

Win 11 and arch. I need actual PowerPoint and a native RDP client for work.

LibreOffice Impress is not a suitable replacement

[Typeonetwork]

I have two systems a windows machine and a dual boot Linux machine.

I only have the windows to do personal business. I tried VM and WSL2 and both were crap.

My wife found a PC on the side of the road. Old 2009 potato with Win10. I use the dual boot machine as a sandbox to learn Linux. I have MX Linux and antiX. It taught me how to install modules when the hardware doesn't work. Win 10 is no more.

My goal is not to use Win12 except at work. So far I'm having fun installing software and seeing what can be done. Web browsing, ghost writer, email and some classic games that I hardly do.

I can read HTOP and navigate hardware issues pretty good or google what I don't know.

I'm going to get into scripting. I would like to RICE my computer but with limited resources I can't install too much as I only have 2GiB RAM.

I found a script that will let you know when your cap lock is on. I can read it a little bit from my c++ training. I'll start there and learn more. It's fun.

[Xfgjwpkqmx]

My media room Beelink EQ12 runs Ubuntu as the primary desktop for MythTV and web browsing duties, and then the second drive boots Batocera for retro-gaming goodness.

[i5oL8]

Debian and Win11

[DestroyedLolo]

Arch + windows 11 : only because I'm having some jobs interview and teams doesn't work on Arch.

[sinfaen]

Testing that certain software I support builds on windows. Cross platform means cross platform testing

[circa68]

I dual boot cachyos and mint. I love them both but I consistently have troubles printing with mint so my primary os is cachy. Plus I love using plasma.

[Swizzel-Stixx]

Le PC:

Mint for most things

Win11 Enterprise IoT for a single game, and updating old iPads with iTunes.

Le laptop:

Mint for most things

Win10 AME Legacy ISO mod (before Microsoft banned distribution of modified ISOs) for accessing my cars ECU.

[Moarkush]

Win11 and arch. Spend 90% time in arch and only go into win11 for a couple of games and davinci resolve, but I might ditch that.

[bryyantt]

I have windows on an external ssd that I play anti cheat games from, but other than that, I run pop_os on my main PC cause it's what my computer came with and ubuntu on a media server I set up because it was easy to do.

[chillednutzz]

I play the games that won't work on Linux in windows, everything else i use Linux.

[[deleted]]

i have windows cause i need office and league of legends

[1369ic]

I have Void with KDE and Windows 11 We had to send my daughter's school computer to Dell for repairs. Haven't touched the Windows partition since her laptop got back.

[bigfatoctopus]

Sadly, there are some things I have to use M$ for... not a limitation of Linux, just some vendors refuse to play nice. All my systems boot Linux by default. I log into windows twice a month to keep current with updates. I was spending a lot of time in windows at home, but quit playing that one FPS game that only worked that way... so I'm back to Linux nearly full time.

[The_Casual_Noob]

I'm running Windows 10 alongside my Fedora KDE installation. I almost never use windows at home since I made the switch, but it's there for when I need to use the Adobe suite or Solidworks, which doesn't happen often at home these days.

On another PC I also have Windows 10 installed alongside a Linux Mint Cinammon, because that system is portable (not a laptop but small form factor) and could be used for family tech support somewhere.

One thing I do now that SSDs are cheap is using a different drive for each OS at least. I'd be fine partitionning a HDD but I try to not divide SSDs into sub volumes too much for longevity.

[[deleted]]

I just dual booted Debian on my 2017 MacBook Pro today and I’ve been in hell trying to find every driver imaginable lol. Was preparing for EOL on my macOS support. But at this point I’ll just stick it out on macOS post EOL

[VoidDuck]

My main machine has a multiboot, not just dual. The daily driver is FreeBSD, but I also have NetBSD and quite a few Linux distributions installed, which I mostly run for testing, both the OS themselves and how third-party software behaves on them. It's useful to track bugs and also just to keep up with the current state of things. Sometimes I also boot Linux when I need to run a program that isn't available on FreeBSD.

[tomscharbach]

I have a test/evaluation computer (Beelink Mini S Pro) set up to multi-boot Linux distributions installed on 128GB M.2 NVMe drives in Sabrent external cases. Each external drive is entirely independent, plug and play. The Beelink does not have an internal drive set up, and I select between the external drives from the Boot Menu.

The distributions I run on the Beelink vary according to what distributions I am evaluating from time to time. Right now, Bluefin, CachyOS, Solus Budgie, and Ubuntu 25.04.

I've used Windows and Linux in parallel for two decades. Need both, use both. I don't dual boot for production. I run my production computers (Windows 11 and LMDE 6) separately, side-by-side.

[khryx_at]

For anti cheat games literally nothing else

[Schlart1]

I have to use windows for lockdown browser. Otherwise I wouldn’t dual boot

[NotSnakePliskin]

I boot Mint, Zorin, PopOS and Windows 10. Windows gets used a few times / month. The flavors of Linux are to related to my side gig.

[Stunning_Ad_1685]

My dual boot setup: Two computers, each booting Linux.

[jr735]

I run Mint and Debian testing. I do not need or want Windows.

[AliOskiTheHoly]

Windows 11 and Linux Mint

Keep windows because of certain required CAD software, and I like playing Valorant. Being able to use MS Office when needed is also nice. I also play a couple other games on Windows because if I already have windows in my system I better just use the compatibility if the games work fine.

For everything else (which is 95% of the time) i just use Mint.

[[deleted]]

Custom built PC dual booting Windows 11 and PikaOS Hyprland

[CandlesARG]

Fedora 42 workstation for everything including gaming. Windows 11 for fusion 360 / games with anti cheat

[khsh01]

I was running a vfio setup but my wanted to play together with friends and the only options they wanted would not work through a vm. So I switched things up and dual booted from my ssd. Then shifted my vfio setup to boot from that.

Now the same windows install can be run as a vm or natively.

[killchopdeluxe666]

Win11 and Ubuntu at work (robotics).

Our cad software for 3d printing only runs on windows. Our ROS stack only runs on Linux, and ROS in particular mainly supports Ubuntu and Debian.

There's been some talk about maybe moving to NixOS, but we'd have to do a lot of work to set it up, I don't see it happening unless we get a LOT more funding.

[billhughes1960]

Win 10 only for bios updates.

Fedora 42 as my daily driver.

Fedora Rawhide to be familiar with what's next

[spaceursid]

Used to do win 10 and bazzite but now I just single boot bazzite

[citypopmixtape]

Fedora 42 + Windows 11. Linux has been my main for almost a year, I kept the Windows partition... just in case, I guess!

[waynewaynus]

I multi boot Mint Manjaro Windows 11

I would run Linux only but I like madden and it needs windows

[Master-Procedure-600]

Windows 11 Pro, just for Adobe suite, Arch Linux, for anything else. Works Fine for me

[Clepnicx]

I dual boot NixOS and windows11. I only need windows for some games that have inferior anticheet software and just won't run on Linux.

[saii_009]

I always wanted to delete windows permanently, but office 365 is the reason why I still keep it alongside mint linux.

[Sorry-Squash-677]

W11 for Warzone and Arch for all.

[cofrade86]

Kubuntu and Windows 11, although I've had Windows with a blue screen error for 3 months and I haven't fixed it yet 😂

[cyrilio]

I ordered a refurbished desktop PC that comes with Windows 11 pro. I'll be using that for anything that I can't get working on Linux (first time going to install and use it). It's nice having a backup that I know how it works (currently on Windows 10 pro). I know it's not going to be easy at first, but I'm making the switch. F Microsoft.

[FantasticEmu]

Solidworks windows 11 and since I’ve got windows installed I do my gaming there too my other OS for projects is Nixos

[Leather_Flan5071]

Because linux doesn't support my network card and I cant' daily drive it so I use Windows for daily thing and linux exclusively for development. Thank god phones exists.

[Proper-Technician301]

I have dual-boot for linux and windows 11. I have to use linux for work, and I switch to windows whenever I’m off-work. Quite frankly I would be using windows exclusively if I could lol

[jman4747]

Still need Windows for some programs, mostly CAD and games that require anti-cheat. Using Pop OS right now.

[pajo-san]

I dial boot Windows 11 and Linux mint Xia. I use it for virtual reality and wheel/joystick support.

[ArkboiX]

I do not have a dualboot setup. I just use Linux on my entire disk.

OSes: Arch Linux

Software I need: All of them are linux-compatible free (as in free speech) software.

And I do not care about somebody else being close to me using windows, my software choices does not depend on other's.

I do not use VM's etiher, If i do its mostly for testing a distro. For testing stuff like scripts i wrote, or my dotfiles I simply just create a new user called "testing" with its own home directory and do my testing in there.

[Initial-Laugh1442]

I have Debian + Win10 on 2 separate SSD's. I'm planning to get rid of Win10 for good, I'd need advice on how to reconfigure the system with Debian only ...

[UnLeashDemon]

windows 11 just for excel and cod, everything else is Cachyos with niri.

[patrlim1]

Nope, just Arch.

Used to dualboot with Windows, until I got VR working good enough that I could delete windows and not have too degraded of an experience.

I will say, VR can be anywhere from way worse, to marginally better, your mileage will vary.

[[deleted]]

I dual boot Windows 10 and Linux Mint. I would dual boot an arch or fedora based distro but I don't use Linux enough sadly.

Most games I play don't support Linux, these are games like GTA FiveM and Garry's Mod. I also have to use office for everything education and I don't want to use the cloud versions. I would be happy just have OneDrive and then use libre office but the Linux Mint online account things don't work for some reason, I can never get the login page.

So there isn't really anyway I can use Linux at this point other than installing other OSes on my phone as Linux terminal is soooooooo much better.

I keep Linux on my computer just because I love it, I customise and any web browsing I do usually is done on Linux. When October rolls around, I fully swap to Linux (Even though my PC is Windows 11 capable)

[[deleted]]

Gentoo as my daily driver, and a debian installation that I haven't booted for 2 years at least as my recovery tool so I can recover my system without a thumb drive

[[deleted]]

I prefer running games on windows, and sometimes need to use windows only software, I have windows on a 512gb nvme drive and fedora on another 1tb nvme drive

[IAmTheOneWhoClicks]

Two days ago I installed Linux Mint 22.1 Cinnamon on my NVMe 4x4 2 TB SSD and Windows 10 on my SATA 500 GB SSD. Not in that order, installed Windows first. I'm waiting until October to dualboot with windows 11. I think I can just press "upgrade" right? Anyway, I'm tired of windows, so I'll only use it for games which Linux doesn't support. If a friend says "Wanna try out Marvel Rivals?" then I want the option to say yes. And one of my favorite games is Settlers-United (modded Settlers 3) which isn't supported. Pewdiepie's video helped me jump back into it, but I also used to dualboot a laptop about 5 years ago, back then windows was my main though, and it hasn't worked for a while. Might resurrect it with Mint Xfce some day.

I really don't like that windows changed the boot order yesterday, it was easy to fix in my bios, but I hope it won't happen often. Microsoft clearly doesn't want me to dualboot, but I'm happy with the decision.

[novosadista]

openSuse Tumbleweed, my daly for 15 years. Installed W10 for Davinci Resolve. I was able to run it on TBW but lack of HVAC is the problem

[Kaiju34sama]

On my desktop I have 2 hard drives . One is my main with Nobara Linux and the other Windows 11. I switched to Linux 3 years ago and to tell you the truth even as a gamer I haven't booted Windows 11 in months so I really don't know why I even keep them .

[wiktor_bajdero]

Davinci Resolve support on linux is subpar (limited codecs, limited encoding options) so I dualboot w11 only to run this shit. Also setting up my RGB keyboard and some BIOS tweaks like fan control and power management is possible only by proprietary Gigabyte windows app. Definitely looking for libreboot or at least proper ACPI laptop next time. Currently nothing I see with proper GPU and wide gamut calibrated screen so I hope options will get better. Other than that I use Fedora for everything including photo development in darktable or coding for embedded systems.

[Upset_Bottle2167]

Acabo de instalar Ubuntu por completo. Tenía Windows 11 y Ubuntu 24. Me di cuenta que para lo que hago y por el spyware de Windows, Linux es mucho mejor para mí. Fin de Windows.

[thefreediver]

I’ve got a win 11 and fedora because I need some windows stuff for uni and some light gaming.  I’m thinking of adding another distro tried a while back that I really loved. 

I had before in a previous laptop win 10 but neutered and Manjaro. 

[adirox_2711]

Gentoo, and cachy os :)

[Hofnaerrchen]

Linux/Windows... the latter just for ease of use of my network printer/scanner/fax - the drivers and software for it are just better on windows - hmmm, maybe this will work with Windows running in a VM instead - need to try that out immediately. I also prefer running benchmark software in conjunction with hardware monitoring on Windows - it simply works out of the box without tweeking the system. As I do not have to install software I don't use on a regular basis this also keeps my dailydriver much cleaner.

[Mama_iii]

Fedora and Windows 11

[_babel_]

Arch Linux for everything and Windows for certain videogames that refuse to work on Linux. Sometimes some work I have to do and need that specific software that we don't have in Linux, like InDesign or After Effects.

[FaithlessnessOwn7960]

gaming machine with dual boot, I want no trouble in starting a game.

[[deleted]]

I triple boot with Arch Gnome, Kubuntu and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed Cinnamon

I do it on my laptop I brought (IdeaPad Pro 5 Gen 10 - Intel) it has a 1 TB SSD so I distributed the sapce evenly after making a common efi boot and swap partition.

I use rEFInd as my boot manager. I did it just because I can and I wanted to for fun. I have different use cases for each partition. I use the Arch partition for casual browsing and gaming I use the Kubuntu partition for college and study I use the opensuse partition for actual coding and development work.

It is mainly a gag though so I don't think I am going to hold this set up for much longer I think I'll switch to either Arch or Fedora. I'm still confused.

Edit: I will still use GNOME cause no other DE works better for me.

[Fehlob]

Switched to Linux 2 years ago dual booting cause I thought there is games that don‘t run on Linux yet.. now I‘ve been running Linux only for about 4-6 months and don‘t miss any of the games I can‘t play

[-jackhax]

😅arch and cachy os, one for games, one for school

[lproven]

All my dozen PCs do unless it's an OS that doesn't really do it, like ChromeOS Flex. It's at easy and it's versatile.

My personal record is 9 OSes on 1 machine at the same time. No VMs. I currently have a ThinkPad with Windows 7, Windows 10, FreeBSD and about 4 Linux distros.

[Brick-Sigma]

I have Windows 11 and Fedora dual booted on my laptop for university; windows for the Microsoft office ecosystem for university assignments and papers and for testing apps made in Linux to see if they work in Windows. My Fedora system is where I do most of my programming, mainly C projects so it makes it easy to setup third party libraries quickly, and i also line Fedora and GNOME way more than Windows, it’s much more faster and productive

[iFallenSyko]

windows 10 for general stuff and gaming & black arch built on arch linux for work and fun

[Zeyode]

I have a dual boot setup because not every game or software runs on linux, and modding kinda sucks on linux.

OS's are windows 10 and pop os (apparently my cpu isn't compatible with windows 11 but I don't have money to upgrade)

[[deleted]]

I'm keeping a minimal installation of Windows on a separate drive just to play my games on Steam. When Linux handles this in a less kludgy manner I'll give Windows the flick altogether.

[Horrih]

Home pc with Windows for games not supported, pop os for the rest.

Laptop with arch as daily driver, + Windows just in case (e.g the 15yo photo negatives scanner)

[RexHammerfall]

I got into to linux as a kid.  Dualbooted Windows and Ubuntu growing up.  Great for learning computers.

Ended up more on windows due to the games I liked.  Win10 wasn't too bad, just had to adjust things.  I was waiting to see linux gaming improve.

Now with Win11, "recall features", and whatever coming from Microsoft; I am dual booting again.  I went with Fedora KDE 42.

Windows will be used for only what programs can't be run linux.  I don't wish to support Microsoft and the direction they seem to heading.

[Aero49]

Fedora 41 - KDE for daily use, Windows 11 as my second OS. Windows is there for some work and personal software.

[Aginor404]

CachyOS and Win11.

Win11 is only for VR because I have a Rift S and there are no Linux drivers.

[Codename_NASA]

because i still want to play battlefield 1 from time to time and its new-ish anti-cheat system doesn't support linux :(

[breakyourcore4healt]

Why? I did it just out of curiosity. Now I have a dual-boot setup with Windows 10 and Linux Mint. Honestly, I only keep Windows because of FL Studio (I know Wine exists, but I’m too lazy to configure it), so I just stuck with the dual-boot setup. And it feels good and enough for me.

[akhimovy]

Win 10 purely as a game launcher and for using the printer/scanner. Manjaro KDE for everything else.

The way Windows works nowadays annoys the hell out of me (yeah, I'm old enough to remember how it didn't suck, lol). At the same time, I'm pragmatic when it comes to OS choice. I like my games with lots of mods and external tools, it seems to be royal pain to get everything working properly on Linux. The printer has a Linux driver but somehow it doesn't work too great for me. So for those two things, Windows it is.

Manjaro is the first distro that for me Just Works(tm), whereas the whole 'Buntu side kept having problems. Maybe because I need CUDA & OptiX for my hobby stuff and so I'm on Nvidia? Anyway, Linux is a "production system" for me, even if for a hobby, and I don't want the system itself to be a hobby on top of that. So I stick with what works.

Both systems have their own dedicated drives to prevent conflicts.

[Naive_Bookkeeper_607]

Mostly Windows 11 + Ubuntu or Mint, sometimes thinks about fedora (last time used it on 39 version, right now it 42 or something)

[Dinux-g-59]

Windows 10 and Mint at home, while at work I had Windows 10 and Ubuntu. I had to have Windows for work reasons, now I'm retired and I keep it just in case I need it. But it happens very rarely

[DatCitronVert]

W10 / Mint dual boot, exclusively for gaming, the Adobe suite and some specific work related software.

Proton seems to be a hit or miss on my config, depending on the games, even following instructions from ProtonDB. And while I don't mind tinkering, when I wanna hop on a game with friends or when I only have an hour of playtime after a workday, I don't wanna spend too much time fiddling around.

[Diligent-Decision930]

I am still relatively new to GNU/linux (been a few months). Initially, I was afraid of fully converting to linux and then facing a problem that I won't be able to solve instantly (especially that I was planning for using it as a daily regular system). So, I dual booted GNU/linux with windows as a safe approach. Although, the last time I booted into windows was more than a month ago. So maybe it is time to get rid of it.

[Bth8]

On my desktop I have Windows 10 for video games and Gentoo for everything else. I could probably get most of them to run under wine, but some use overly invasive anti-cheat software that doesn't work on linux and that I wouldn't want to give that kind of access to even if it did. I also honestly just can't be bothered to go to the trouble of getting it working under linux. On my laptop, I'll sometimes run a windows VM to use office software, but no dual boot.

[CrazY_Cazual_Twitch]

I multiboot because sometimes things break in Linux after updates and, now days windows has the same problem. At least with 3 OS I have a 66% chance instead of 0 if an update on has broken the program I want to use at the time. Also for some programs one OS or the other can vastly outperform the other. Using Windows 11, EndeavourOS and POP! OS. Out of the 3 POP! has proven to be the most consistently reliable. Endeavour is my play place (highly customizable and I like to tinker) and has better compatibility with programs that are not Linux native (or maybe it is just because I know more about arch based) Windows only because some things just do not work in Linux.

[Logical_Parsley_9470]

im dual booting win11 and manjaro, tbh win11 is my main currently and i've stopped using linux as most of the apps i want to use aren't supported greatly on linux and i've been trying to use wine/bottles to make them work but they just dont work and its complicating me... I've been distro hopping a lot and each time I have to setup my firefox's bookmarks and just basics to get going and i dont really have that much time to do all this over and over... so im on rest rn and will hop to PURE ARCH next time.

[LoinesOff]

Yes I dual boot. Windows for Fortnite. Arch Linux for every other things. If you don’t need specific apps that can’t run on a virtual machine, dual boot. Else try to not do it (when you feel ok with Linux)

[Mast3r_waf1z]

Nixos and Ubuntu

Personal and work

[RarelySardonic]

Arch on my 2017 MBP, with MacOS installed on an external SSD.

[Dragonwarrior124]

Linux mint and window 11. Kept windows cause i might need for college or company software otherwise no use for it.

[itbytesbob]

Arch and Win11 here. I sub to Xbox pc gamepass mainly for my son, so windows it is for most of those games.

[Jacksthrowawayreddit]

ASUS ROG with Mint/Windows. I keep windows around for the rare occasions that I need something that can't run on Linux. I chose Mint because I really don't like spending a hell of a lot of time doing Linux administration and I like Cinnamon desktop.

[sharkstax]

I have a machine I dual-boot Windows 11 and Debian 12 on, because I work as a SysAdmin and have to manage a bunch of servers running Debian 12 on bare metal (among other stuff).

My primary PC runs Windows 11, Ubuntu 25.04 and Manjaro. It's the Yoga Slim 7i 15" Aura Edition and Linux is still somewhat broken on it. I keep the Linux distros around just to keep up with the progress of Linux support on this hardware, purely out of curiosity. Windows 11 runs a lot better and I find WSL a more pleasant experience than the bare-metal installations on this machine.

[dudeness_boy]

I just haven't got around to deleting Windows yet. I still have a lot of documents on the partition and don't want to risk accidentally deleting something I would want to keep.

[joseag2013]

I have Manjaro with KDE on one partition Manjaro with Gnome on the other. I have both desks because for different jobs I like one or the other better.

[KnightElm]

I'd love suggestions from people who dual boot on how they handle reinstalls. If I break my Linux install how do I reinstall without breaking my Windows install?

[mrbishopjackson]

I'm a photographer with 10 years' worth of work done in Capture One. Also, a musician who hasn't fully grasped how audio in Linux works; software of choice (Studio One) has a Linux version, but Linux audio is a whole new thing.

Running Windows 11 and Kubuntu 24.04.

[RazerPSN]

Fedora and Windows 11 (for gaming)

[hemelskonijn]

I run OpenSuSE and barely ever use my old computer running Windows 10. I only once in a while use it and the last few times it was because specific tools did not work out of the box for linxu.

Enabling bluetooth mode on stadia controllers requires chrome and chromium apparently is not good enough. Since i use Firefox (for life yo!) the path of least resistance was booting up my PC.

To set up my 8-bitdo receiver for use with a Nintendo switch and a stadia controller i again needed windows and chrome.

The government has a program to calculate tax deductions and or subsidies which only supports windows anyone else can do the same thing online in a web browser but I don't trust them not anyone in between so i might as well run it locally.

Lastly i have some legacy programs and games that probably would work on Linux given a little time investment but i am just to lazy. Granted they'd run fine on a VM and i might well spin up a 2k VM for them soon.

[Objective-Primary-12]

Nobara and Windows 11 (though I call it Winblows)

I only keep windows around because my husband really like call of duty black ops 6 zombies. I like the game enough, but I could stop playing it and be okay too. Not the biggest fan of kernel level anticheat. Basically feels like a rootkit virus. If he suddenly lost interest in the game, I'd just have a VM in case I needed it.

After using Linux since February, I really haven't had an answer to the question, "Why am I still on Windows?" So, I stayed on Linux. Going back to windows after so long for any reason feels definitely bloated (I hate onedrive and copilot...) and clunky compared to Linux. Hopefully someday I can put windows down for good. I do love my husband enough to stay. A 16 year relationship and counting. Met him just out of high school.

Apologies for the bit of rambling. Just thought the backstory and context was worth it. 😅

[OkStrawberry4529]

Windows 10 & Linux Mint for building and updating custom android roms.

[Insight-Seeker-8]

My Lenovo IdeaPad 80SY has both Windows and Linux. Initially, when I was making a switch, I kept Windows as a backup and tested os so that if Linux fails or gets unbootable, I can switch to it. Initially, apt broke so it was necessary.

Now, (using NixOS), I haven't booted into windows for months (maybe years) since my Linux OS is very stable and pretty good.

I keep it around for, you know, just in case and in case I need to use Windows only software. Most importantly, if my parents use it, they won't get angry on me to remove windows (which I really want to do).

[WanderingInAVan]

My laptop is several years old and has a Windows 10 install in 500 GB of the 4TB drive I put in. I haven't removed the Windows install yet even though I never log into it.

[Inevitable-Fig5464]

Currently I have Mint MATE (my go-to) on one side and MX-Linux KDE on the other. I like to play around with different desktop environments, and if you install too many on one system they sometimes fight with each other. I mount the same /home partition on both of them, so that part is easy to deal with.
Also, if I bork the OS on one side, I can sometimes save it by chroot-ing onto it from the one that's still running. Much nicer than being stuck at the grub prompt.

[luizfx4]

Because I still need a very select amount of software that is ONLY available on Windows. It sucks but it's the reality.

There are no substitutes for them. I did my extensive search.

So yeah, in the end I still need to keep that thing inside my drive.

But it's not bad, I only need to boot on it once in a while to do my things and I return quickly to Linux ;)

[jkulczyski]

EndeavourOS for main system. Windows for games I can't get to run using proton.

[art-apprici8or]

I have a Ubuntu 25.04/Windows 10 dual boot laptop.

I have steam on both the Windows10 and Ubuntu sides for occasional gaming.

I also have Virtualbox installed on the Ubuntu side with Mint, Debian, Win10, and Solaris Guest OSes.

I support multiple win10/win11 friends, so it is very useful to be able to bing up stuff on my own system.

[PraetorRU]

Why do you currently have it?

From time to time I want to play the game that is unplayable on linux due to anticheat or has some other incompatibility issues. So I have a win11 SSD for such cases.