windows 10 to linux

join the dark side

first off: if you are already a Linux User, and have Opinions on this topic, this page isn't really for you. this is written for windows 10 people with little to no linux exposure, who want someone to walk them through getting ready to switch. if you are that person, welcome!

also, this assumes your computer is 64-bit. if your computer isn't VERY cheap or originally designed for a much older windows version like 7 or vista, that's probably a safe bet. if you aren't sure, you should go check that. if your computer is actually 32-bit, you should go back to the main guide and hit "32-bit computers, pentium 4 or newer".

table of contents

what is a linux, anyway?

if you got here, you probably know by now that linux is an operating system, which replaces windows on your computer. you may have also heard that it runs on a potato, and the steam deck for some reason, that some people are switching to it instead of windows 11, and that it is free and costs no money. this is all true (although there's a lot of extra details there that i'm glossing over).

linux is also super fragmented - there are a lot of "distributors" who make their own versions of linux, with their own opinions on how it should work. one person's linux distribution and another's might look like they have nothing in common on the surface!

this is because things you think of as immutable parts of windows, like the file manager or the taskbar, are parts you can just casually change on linux... and, of course, everyone has their own configs, and thinks their choices are better than everyone else's :) it's kind of daunting for a new user, so i'm going to make it simple for you (even if it makes the experts a little mad - sorry guys).

which linux should i use?

for about 80% of people who are considering switching to linux, that's a really simple answer, as much as us linux nerds hate it:

Just Pick Linux Mint / Cinnamon!

it's boring, and that's good. it's laid out like a mix between windows 7 and windows 10, so all the buttons are probably in the places you expect. it's frictionless - a comfortable home base, to reduce the number of inevitable frustrations you'll have from learning a new OS. linux mint was the first linux i daily drove as my main OS, and i also gave it to several other people as their first. zero regrets. there are situations where it's not the right choice, and i personally have moved away from it as i've gotten more fluent at linux, but it is the most popular choice for beginners, and my own experience shows that there are good reasons for that.

there are a lot of other options, obviously, and some of them are very good! this one, though, is by far the safest, most boring, most reliable, middle of the road option. if people are interested in more nuanced takes, i might make another page for that at some point, but for now, this is my official stance.

getting the install media

this is not dissimilar to the windows 11 upgrade page:

installing linux

to install linux from the install media you've created, you will need to reboot into advanced startup. you can do this on windows 10 by going to Settings > Update and Security > Recovery > Advanced startup > Restart now. you should be taken to a blue screen with the title "Choose an option" - there, select "Use a device", then select the USB device.

from there, you will be loaded into the linux mint installer (assuming it was written properly to the USB drive, and you selected the correct USB drive at the advanced startup menu). the installation from here is explained by the linux mint team at https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install.html.

dual-booting linux

what if you want to keep your windows install, just in case? you can make different choices during the install, to set it up so that you can choose to start either windows 10 or linux mint on boot.

drive share - linux and windows on one drive

first, you should make sure that your C: drive in windows 10 has at least 32GB of free space, and is preferably no more than half full. you need as much space as possible, because linux mint will take up space when you install it, and whatever remaining storage space exists will be divided between the two operating systems! (they can't share - they have to exist in separate blocks of your hard drive, which means the "free space" will also be divided into two smaller chunks.)

after this, follow the guide above with no changes, all the way to the linux install screen, where you should select "Install Linux Mint alongside Windows" instead of "Erase disk and install Linux Mint." no other changes are necessary.

separate drives - linux on one drive, windows on another

for this setup to work, you obviously need two drives in your windows 10 computer, a C: and D: drive, and one of them needs to be completely empty of files. once this is true, you can follow the guide above, but when you get to "Erase disk and install Linux Mint", just be sure that you select the empty D: drive as the disk to erase. similarly to the drive share method above, you should be able to choose linux or windows when you turn your computer on, but each will have a whole drive to itself (making things slightly more stable and easier to manage).

the depths of madness: "linux.exe"

i find this whole concept insane, but somehow, the team at Q4OS has managed to make it work: you can install linux by running an .exe in windows 11/10/8/7. this is much easier than the other methods, but also raises a bunch of horrifying questions, because to put it simply: this is not supposed to be a thing you can do under windows. the way modern computers boot and divide up hard drive space should make this extremely fragile and unreliable, and it should be likely to accidentally delete your data or render your system unbootable, but apparently, it just works???

i have never done it, so i can't confidently say that it will work, and i'd recommend you back up all your data before trying it, but if you have no external drive with which to install... it's probably better than nothing???

if you're willing to potentially brick your PC and lose all your data in the name of not having to find a USB flash drive, you can go to https://www.q4os.org/downloads1.html, then scroll down to "Installer for Windows", and click the link to "WinSetup.exe". supposedly, all you have to do after that is just... run the .exe file. and then pray to Saint IGNUcius that it works.


other resources

venus territory, another lightweight personal site, has a decent article with a crash course on migrating to linux, setting up a dual boot system, and related stuff. if you'd like some further reading, you can go there and have a look. just know that the first bit of the article is years out of date now, and the author's personal opinions and biases slip through quite a bit :P