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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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[-] smeg@feddit.uk 2 points 21 hours ago

You say Windows was on a separate drive, but then you talk about dual booting. Do you mean that Windows was on another partition on a shared drive, or do you have two separate hard drives?

I assumed dual booting just means having multiple OSs installed, does it specifically mean having them on the same disk? I have separate disks, so hopefully no need for partitioning shenanigans.

What problem are you trying to solve?

Partly redundancy, if I mess up one then I've still got the other; partly for supporting people, I've set up non-techies on both and I want to be able to load up the same system myself when I need to help them.

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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