I need to buy a new desktop tower, which means it'll have Windows installed. I haven't used Windows since the 90s, so need some guidance.
A special complication is that I just had a computer apocalypse in which a Power Surge From Hell nuked *everything*, so trivial tasks like writing netinst to a flash drive or CD-ROM are suddenly nontrivial: I need to get Debian's netinst using Windows, with whatever browser is there, then write it with Windows tools. So: (1) Will an HTTPS download in Windows suffice to get me an uncorrupted netinst? (Anything I need to know about "binary mode"?) (2) What Windows tool will write that netinst to flash? Does Windows 10 Home have that tool? Pro? Windows 11? (I don't know yet what Windows I'll end up with.) (3) What Windows tool will write that netinst to CD-ROM? Does Windows 10 Home have that tool? Pro? Windows 11? (I have ancient beige boxes that might boot from CD-ROM but not flash; they'd be useful as failsafes.) (4) Will the latest Mordorsoft dual-boot fsckup prevent maintaining the Windows installation in its own partition, so I have to nuke the only working OS before installing Debian? Will that be true of Windows 10 as well as 11? (This question MIGHT be really important, because I might have the option of buying something with Windows 10 instead of 11; maybe that'd be a major win.) (5) If I can keep a Windows partition, how big must it be? (6) Can/should I do the repartitioning from Windows before installing Debian, & with what tool? (7) I like the strategy of having /home in a separate partition, so I can easily upgrade by doing a fresh install. What's the minimum size you'd recommend for a partition containing / but excluding /home and intended to remain usable for the life of an SDD, so presumably spanning many Debian releases? (Remember I can't now look at an existing installation for comparison; everything I had is toast.) (8) I've heard that the initial Windows setup process has hair and takes an hour. People who buy towers from Walmart have written that they needed Walmart customer support to get their Windows "activated", whatever that means. Any tips to avoid Windows doing updates that'll bork dual-boot, or otherwise just waste time? Remember that this will initially be my only working computer. (I'm typing now on the virtual keyboard of an ancient smartphone.) (9) Does Windows have, or can it easily get, an SSH client that'll let me shell in to my ISP (Eskimo North) before I have Debian running? I expect to read all of the Debian GNU/Linux Installation Guide at https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/ eventually, but only the hardware-compatibility stuff before making the hardware purchase.
