Dual Booting Windows 11 and Fedora Silverblue / Kinoite - how to shrink my Windows partition and where to go from there?
Dual Booting Windows 11 and Fedora Silverblue / Kinoite - how to shrink my Windows partition and where to go from there?
Hello,
I'm quite new to the idea of dual-booting, and I have a new Lenovo Legion Slim 7 which I would like to dual-boot on.
I definitely know that Thinkpads have better Linux compatibility, but Thinkpads would not meet my main use case for this laptop (hence my choice). It's also got an Nvidia GTX 4060 in it, which will probably not be optimal from what I hear (so any tips on that are much appreciated as well!). At least it has an AMD Ryzen.
That being said, I would love to use Fedora Silverblue / Kinoite alongside Windows. I know the docs say it will come with some difficulties, but I am willing to give it a crack given some of the latest comments on the issue tracker (https://github.com/fedora-silverblue/issue-tracker/issues/284#issuecomment-1869828571).
How would I go about actually shrinking Windows 11 down to make space for Fedora? Is "partitioning" the right word to use here?
It seems there are a million tools out there for this, but I would like to try to avoid extra tools for it unless there is a really reputable and easy-to-use one (just to avoid bloat).
After I shrink the partition, is it then just a matter of running the installer and using automatic partitioning with the unused space left over after shrinking Windows?
I'm a developer, but honestly the simpler you can explain this process, the better (I'm a web developer with very little experience dual-booting anything at all and have no clue how this process should go down).
Thank you!
Edit: I'd also love to know what kind of issues the docs are actually warning about as far as dual-booting. Will Windows wipe the bootloader on update or will Silverblue / Kinoite wipe Windows out somehow? If it's Silverblue wiping Windows out, that may cause me to go with a different distro - but if Windows wipes Silverblue, it'll be annoying but not a deal breaker (I plan to use Silverblue / Kinoite for development exclusively, so everything will be on GitHub).
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yes partitioning is the correct term, and windows already has a tool for managing disks. you should find it as disk management or something similar. then as you install linux, it should give you the option to install alongside windows. but for this to work you need the usb drive to be flashed correctly as gpt or mbr depending on which one your windows has (type "list disk" in cmd and see if theres * under gpt), and rufus lets you choose this for your distro, so pick the same one. i have heard windows updates may wipe the bootloader, but you should be able to just install it back if that happens. i never update as i only use windows for my school stuff anyway. linux will not wipe windows unless you choose to do so in the installer.
Thank you so much for the detailed answer 🙏