Double operating system

[not_MrFrost]

Hi everyone! For some time, I was thinking about installing linux on my pc, as my main OS, and then having a virtual machine with Windows for gaming, and other things. My main worry, is getting a virus, or even worse, those malware that copy your session token, and then you're f-ed without even noticing it. I want to have all my accounts logged in on linux, and then I can download and do everything  else on the virtual machine. Another thing, is school; I don't want a surveillance program from the university on my pc, that can monitor if I'm cheating or not, even outside of school-hours, and I don't want to mix up school/work life with private life. Anyway, if it wasn't clear, I'm asking if anyone can help me get started with this, where I can boot in linux, or I can dual boot, and then choose what I want, whatever is better. Also, any advice and/or tutorial to learn and get started with this, what linux distro should I use, etc.

Sorry for any grammar mistakes; English isn't my first language, and I'm also very tired.

Thanks in advance for your time and advice!

[deadlou666]

dual boot with ubuntu or rocky imo (just google dual boot)

[tkitch]

Don't do windows in a VM.
A lot of anti-cheat apps now view VMs as cheats, and will give you no-end of the shit if you do that.

 

Just dual boot, with 2 OSs on 2 drives.

[dcgreen2k]

17 minutes ago, tkitch said:

Just dual boot, with 2 OSs on 2 drives.

This is what I do, and I haven't had any problems with the setup. The monitoring software I've used for university will detect if it's running inside a VM and cannot be run on Linux. So, I dual boot PopOS and Windows 11. PopOS is my daily driver because my development work is a lot easier on Linux than Windows, but I keep W11 around for when I want to play video games or when I need to take a monitored exam.

 

A note on choosing Linux distros: you can burn the .iso file for a distro on a flash drive using Rufus, and then try it out using the "Live CD" feature. All of the Linux distros I've tried have it, and it makes it super easy to see if that distro will work for you.

 

My top 3 are:
1. PopOS

2. Fedora

3. Linux Mint

 

Also, I don't recommend running games inside a VM. Dual booting is the way.

[Noir_68]

don't do VM because i heard that a lot of anti cheat consider VM as a cheat, so just dual boot windows and linux. i used to do dual boot (even triple boot once) on my old laptop. and for which flavor i personally like Ubuntu, because i it's my very first distro that i use. 

[not_MrFrost]

6 hours ago, Noir_68 said:

don't do VM because i heard that a lot of anti cheat consider VM as a cheat, so just dual boot windows and linux. i used to do dual boot (even triple boot once) on my old laptop. and for which flavor i personally like Ubuntu, because i it's my very first distro that i use. 

 

6 hours ago, tkitch said:

Don't do windows in a VM.
A lot of anti-cheat apps now view VMs as cheats, and will give you no-end of the shit if you do that.

 

Just dual boot, with 2 OSs on 2 drives.

 

6 hours ago, deadlou666 said:

dual boot with ubuntu or rocky imo (just google dual boot)

Well, thank you very much for all the advice! Now I just need to see which linux distro to use (I like technical stuff, but like, not too complicated), so y'all can give me your personal opinion on the matter, if you like to!

 

Also, another question: if something bad happens on one OS, like a ransomware or something, will the other OS get affected, supposing that I have 2 different drives with 2 differens OS, with dual booting? Because I was also thinking of getting 2 hard disk to run in RAID 1 configuration, for personal data and backups, and I wanted to know if they could be affected in some way. 

Sorry if I sound paranoid, but... I just want to be secure lol.

[tkitch]

linux is a very uncommon vector for ransomware / viruses (due to low target size)

 

Windows can't read standard linux formatted drives, without special software add-ons.