On Sunday, 29-12-2024 at 11:20 Rafał Lichwała wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I plan to switch completely from Windows 11 to Debian on my laptop, but
> as a first step I'd like to configure double-boot setup to give it a
> try, look around and check if all hardware works fine under Debian.
>
> Current state:
> Dell laptop (one NVMe disk only) with Windows 11 onboard.
> Windows starts in UEFI mode (Secure Boot ON).
> Already resized main partition to make space for Debian.
> So currently there are the following partitions on disk:
>
> 100MB, FAT32, GPT (EFI System Partition)
> 16MB, Other, GPT (Reserved Partition)
> 300GB, NTFS, GPT (Data Partition) (Main C: disk visible under Win11)
> 168GB, free space, ready to have ~150GB for Debian and 16GB for swap
> 880MB, NTFS, GPT (Recovery Partition)
>
> First try:
> UEFI Boot (Secure Boot ON), Debian Trixie, Expert mode installation
> During installation Debian does NOT see my disk at all (pendrive with
> Debian Trixie is visible only)
> Also during installation Debian says that "it seems there is another
> system installed in Legacy Mode, am I sure to force UEFI mode?" which
> is not correct - Win11 is installed in UEFI mode (when I try to boot it
> in Legacy Mode I get Windows Blue Screen Of Death)
>
> Second try:
> Secure Boot set to OFF.
> Nothing changed during Trixie installation, so no device to install on.
>
> Third try:
> Boot in Legacy Mode (so Secure Boot is OFF).
> Debian Trixie can see my laptop disk properly, so installation is
> successful, but...
> It cannot see my Windows 11 installation when trying to
> install/configure/prepare GRUB.
> At this step I decided to NOT install GRUB on my main disk to NOT loose
> access to my Windows 11 system.
> (but Trixie says that it's possible to restore access by manual
> configuration of GRUB later on - I'm not sure...)
>
> Main goal:
> To have both current Windows 11 and new Debian Trixie available in GRUB
> and properly bootable.
Rafal,
I could give better comments if I knew the hardware, particularly the GPU type.
If I knew the model number I could look up YouTube to see if memory and/or NVMe
were easily upgradeable, something I confirmed before purchasing my most recent
laptop.
These are my thoughts, based on my past experiences:
1) Boot Debian live DVD and check hardware works (my laptop's fingerprint
reader is not recognised, but that is the only item that does not work). Is it
possible to use Nvidia proprietary drivers when using a live DVD? I would not
expect so. I could not get a decent idea of graphics performance for an Nvidia
GPU without using Nvidia proprietary drivers .
2) If the NVMe was easily replaceable, I would simply put the Windows NVMe
aside and install a new NVMe for Linux only. This is just my personal
preference.
3) (as others have suggested) I would recommend installing Debian Bookworm.
Once all was working well, if you truly had a need for Debian Testing (e.g.
Debian Trixie), it is not hard to upgrade from Debian Bookworm to Debian
Trixie. I expect Debian Trixie will be released in around six months time, but
until then Debian Trixie is "Testing" and hence could break too easily, like my
current Debian Trixie installation did yesterday.
4) If you want to dual boot, then I do not see issues using Debian Bookworm to
do this. I would boot into Debian (i.e. Grub), from where I select either
Windows or Debian. If my primary use is Windows, then I edit grub to boot to
Windows first. I have not had issues with UEFI lately, I believe Debian handles
this well.
5) I use Debian Bookworm as I like stability. Testing means things will break.
Trixie is currently in testing. I rarely need the latest software. I sometimes
use backports.
https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/
As a matter of Backports policy, packages in the stable-backports suite are
taken from Debian testing; however, in rare cases such as security updates,
packages are taken from unstable.
6) What GUI have you decided to use? While I use XFCE, I recommend KDE to
people, particularly when moving from Windows to Linux. In fact KDE is so nice
now, maybe I will start using KDE too? (I want both, and I do use both, but on
different computers)
7) While I like and use Debian, I have recently learned about KDE Linux.
https://community.kde.org/KDE_Linux
I hope my comments helps you when trying Linux/Debian.
George.
>
> How to achieve this? :-)
>
> Thank you,
> Best Regards,
> Rafal
>
>
>
