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submitted 23 hours ago by smeg@feddit.uk to c/linux@lemmy.ml

Background: I've been running Linux Mint XFCE for a couple of years now, Windows 10 has been sitting unused on a separate drive but it turns out the one thing I need it for works passably in a VM so it's time to bin it. I've used Fedora Atomic (UBlue) on some laptops and I like it so that seems like a good candidate to replace the Windows install, and Mint can hang around for when I need a "normal" Linux install.

Worry: I tried dual-booting them together on a laptop before and I couldn't get grub to recognise both installs, it only detected the most recently installed one and after an evening of running commands way beyond my knowledge I gave up. I'm hoping that's just because I installed them on the same disk though.

Question: does anyone successfully dual-boot a Fedora Atomic install and a "normal" install? If so then what did you do to set it up and did you encounter any issues? And if you're feeling extra helpful, do you have any pro tips for setting up shared storage between the two distros or backups for either?

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[-] hdsrob@lemmy.world 3 points 23 hours ago

Does your motherboard have a boot menu option?

I haven't done 2 Linux installs in this way, but for Linux / Windows I don't really "dual boot". I have two separate drives, with two separate installations. I can boot into either one, even if the other drive is missing.

I did each install with all of the the other drives removed from the machine to keep things clean. Then I can just select whichever drive I want to boot into from the motherboards / UEFI boot menu.

The only downside to this is that I do have to select a default boot drive, so if I'm not paying attention, Windows update will reboot into the Linux installation since it's the default drive.

[-] fozid@feddit.uk 2 points 17 hours ago

You don't need separate disks for this to work. I have my main distro and a recovery one all in the same disk in different partitions, and no grub. It is called efi stub and it's really easy to set up and use. You can have as many boot options as you want.

[-] smeg@feddit.uk 1 points 20 hours ago

I can currently hold down a key (del or f12?) when powering on to choose between the Linux disk and the Windows disk, that's my current dual-boot setup. I also installed each one with the other disk disconnected. I remember the Windows update rebooting into Linux unless I interrupted it too.

this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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