why do people buy a separate pc for linux?

[dag_dg]

I've had issues with dual booting but also excellent experiences as well. Typically on a laptop I'll dual boot but for desktops I'll have separate machines purely out of personal preference. If you have two separate physical drives it can be nice to have dedicated drives for each operating system so you're not having to have two OSes fight over space on the same drive. My favorite approach is to install Windows on one drive, disconnect it, then put Linux on a second drive and then reattach the Windows drive(or do as I do and disable the drives via the bios). With GRUB2 it's pretty easy to get it to detect the windows boot loader and add an entry for it though I'm a UEFI glutton so the BIOS(technically EFI) can see both OSes pretty easily and let me choose which to boot from without hassle. I've found going about things this way usually prevents issues from occurring even despite how ornery the Windows boot loader can be via windows updates.

 

Beyond that "just for fun" it can be fun to have one giant high performance flash drive with a bunch of OSes on it via something like YUMI or multiboot USB. Sort of like a key switch tester but for different OSes, fun for letting people try out different distros.

[herkulessi]

I just repurposed my old Laptop for Linux Tinering. Especially a lot of the software you have to compile from source compiles/runs better in Linux. I use a raspberry pi as NAS and project server, which runs Linux as well (Since ARM-Windows is already bad on Microsofts own Hardware, imagine the performance when you run it on a "PC" with WAY lower spec)

 

I tried dualboot in the past and I forgot the number of times one update or another destroyed at least one of the bootloaders. One Windows Update even managed to erase the whole EFI Partition...

[ToboRobot]

On 8/15/2021 at 6:36 PM, adarw said:

why do people buy another pc just for linux? cant you just dual boot?

Because it is nice to have two working computers running separate operating systems for different tasks.

If I want a webserver linux box and a windows gaming machine, two physically separate machines is a great way to do both at the same time.

[Willa]

On 8/15/2021 at 6:36 PM, adarw said:

why do people buy another pc just for linux? cant you just dual boot?

Multiple reasons!

 

• As others have pointed out, dual booting Linux and Windows can have issues with Windows overwriting the Linux (usually GRUB) bootloader during Windows updates, and other problems
• It's nice to have a spare machine to tinker around with, test things on, etc. without worrying about breaking your daily driver
• Setting up a dedicated web server, file hosting server, music / video / media server, etc. is nice
• Work / Life (or other category) separation: you shouldn't use the same machine for work as you do for personal stuff if the machine is provided by your employer. Also, I personally like having two computer stations setup, my main desktop for general stuff, working, learning, gaming, etc. and a laptop with a monitor in another room for writing, meetings, browsing, etc. And then another laptop for when I travel or go to cafes And then a tablet for reading and taking notes, etc.
• Having a spare or more computer for parts or as a ready replacement in case the main machine breaks is nice too

[LloydLynx]

Because it's nice to have different computers for different tasks. I have my old Dell laptop setup with Debian as my personal/privacy PC, my desktop as my gaming PC/multimedia center, and my Thinkpad as my normie/school laptop.

[Matthew Miller]

There's really kind of a conundrum here. If you're interested in dipping your toes into Linux and seeing what it's like, dual booting seems like an appealing option. But, that puts you immediately into some of the most complicated scenarios in installing a Linux system -- partition tables, filesystems, how Linux organizes these things (very different from Windows!), bootloaders, making sure you're preserving existing data... none of which are ideal "first topics in Linux".

 

So, having a dedicated machine, if you can get one, is an easy way to sidestep that. Or virtualization, of course, but that comes with its own complexities.

[Pc6777]

For dual boot, I disable the physical drives in gpedit so they can't mount, do the boots can't "see each other" and are completely separate.