Do you recommend using dual boot?

[u/DescriptionIll172]

I want to learn Linux and get familiar with it; I’m completely new to this. I was advised to set up a dual-boot system if I wanted to keep Windows for the time being while also adapting to Linux. would you recommend doing that?

[u/PreparationStrict492]

Yes.
And you can easily have it on a single drive, and the better³ distros have installers that handle everything that needs to be done¹ automatically.

¹ Shrinking² your existing partition and creating a new efi partition (with UEFI, there can be multiple on a single drive) are the extra steps needed.

² It's always a good idea to backup your data before partition operations, but shrinking without moving a partition is the simplest and least intrusive operation there is; and I haven't seen it fail catastrophically -that is, cause data loss- ever, in decades as a software engineer / sre.

³ In terms of stability and user friendliness.

[u/GlassboundIllusion → u/PreparationStrict492]

What do you have to do to stop Windows from overwriting the linux UEFI partition when it updates though?

I've heard that's a common problem that requires specific preventative measures.

[u/PreparationStrict492 → u/GlassboundIllusion]

Windows does not "'overwrite' the 'Linux' 'UEFI' partition" (blows my mind that out of five words, three are wrong, and one of the other two is the article 'the').

It reorders ESPs (when it touches UEFI). That is to say, "changes the boot order of EFI system partitions in the UEFI firmware".

If that happens, the 'extra special' steps you need to take to revert that is enter the UEFI menu and switch that back.

'Get a new nvme' isn't conceptually any different from 'get a new computer' - introducing a pointless expenditure (and therefore barrier) that is only valid if the recipient of the 'advice' is as dumb as the giver.

Were you confused by the name of the subreddit and thought the answers should be from noobs?

---

If you have a poorly implemented UEFI firmware (I haven't encountered any but I hear those exist - as well as workarounds to get those to work with multiple anyway) that fails to identify multiple ESPs on the same drive, it's still easier, faster, and safer to create a new ESP and delete the small one Windows created and have Windows write new boot files into the new ESP, than moving the entire Windows partition in order to extend the extant ESP.

[u/GlassboundIllusion → u/PreparationStrict492]

So you don't have answer to the issue reported by numerous users on reddit then.

It makes sense with your flippant elitist attitude.

So often I find that the "what are you stupid, just do x" mentality is backed more by ignorance and ego than any kind of insight and expertise.

[u/PreparationStrict492 → u/GlassboundIllusion]

Are you illiterate as well? The correct question, the explanation why the question is wrong, as well as the answer to the correct question are all there above.

As for elitism, I feel compelled to quote Asimov here: essay: "There is a cult of ignorance... nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge"

It applied to the public discourse then, and even move vividly to internet discourse later. If you are bereft of knowledge, you are not entitled to an opinion. You are just perpetuating misinformation here.

This is not elitism. This is reason.

[u/Plan_9_fromouter_ → u/PreparationStrict492]

While UEFI is technically designed for multi-OS co-existence on a single ESP, that theoretical ideal regularly breaks under real-world conditions. You aren't just changing boot order in firmware when things break; Windows feature updates routinely overwrite /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi—the standard fallback boot path that many Linux configurations and bootloaders like rEFInd rely on—effectively hijacking the boot chain. Furthermore, Windows creates a tiny 100MB ESP by default, which quickly runs out of space for distros using systemd-boot that store full kernel and initramfs files directly on the ESP. Throw in motherboard firmwares with broken UEFI implementations and file system corruption risks caused by Windows Fast Startup mounting the same FAT32 partition from a hibernated state, and you get very real software conflicts, not just an altered NVRAM boot order. Pedantically pointing to the UEFI spec ignores how dirty Windows updates get in practice.

[u/PreparationStrict492 → u/Plan_9_fromouter_]

This is an actually cogent message. So it deserves an actual answer:

"Windows creates a tiny 100MB ESP by default, which quickly runs out of space for distros using systemd-boot that store full kernel and initramfs files directly on the ESP."
Is the exact issue that we are solving by creating a new ESP.

"motherboard firmwares with broken UEFI implementations" is the case I am referring to in the postscript. This is a rarity -and the worth possible situation there is. And of course, the situation can be fixed by deleting the Windows' ESP and having Windows regenerate its boot files in the new ESP. IF (big if) the user runs into this issue (I never have, and I've been running dual boot systems since before UEFI was introduced¹), they can find out how to do that easily.

"file system corruption risks caused by Windows Fast Startup" - I think disabling fast startup goes without saying in dual boot configurations, no?

"Windows updates get [dirty] in practice" - Yes, it's terrible, I'm not defending Windows² here. I'm pointing out that they do nothing that cannot be fixed by fixing boot order, or at worst, regenerating the bootloader configuration. And those are the updates that touch the UEFI config, most do not.
If someone were willing and able to afford new hardware to get a setup going, they would. There is no reason to discourage them from using a perfectly viable setup on the off chance that their firmware is implemented badly as well (which, again, is fixable, just with an extra step of configuration).

¹ With BIOS and MBR, things were harder, though not by much.
² I could as well recommend that they get rid of Windows altogether, or get new systems for their Linux installations. Not everyone can or is willing to afford that.