Hello hello!
I’m new to Linux and, after bingeing a fair share of videos, I’ve decided to kick things off with Linux Mint (coming from Windows 11).
Since I work 12-13 hours a day on my only laptop, I’d like to start with a dual-boot setup before fully committing to the switch.
Here’s the catch: I only have 90 GB of free space on my hard drive. Would it be unreasonable to allocate around 40 GB to Mint? I don’t need much in terms of software - my daily workflow is basically spreadsheets, Discord, and Zoom.
Appreciate any advice!
If you want to mess around with Linux with minimal risk, install it to a USB drive. You'll need two drives: one to act as the boot hard drive and one to serve as the installation drive. Assuming your laptop can boot from USB, this should work fine for learning Linux.
Even cheap thumb drives will work, you don't need a fancy SSD drive.
That's how I tested different distros, by running them from USB drives. I think it's time for me to actually have it installed. But yeah, as others have commented, it is a bit "dangerous" to dual-boot my only laptop I use for work.
You can actually install it from one USB drive to another and have a "real" install that boots when you put the drive in. I did that for a year at an old job that wouldn't give me admin on my box 😆