this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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You don't need a new computer, but Microsoft's influence in the industry made it really inconvenient to run any other operating system alongside Windows on the same PC.
When you start, you need to change some BIOS settings to be compatible with both Windows and Linux. More annoyingly, every time you switch between them you'll have to change tbe Secure Boot option. Turn it off before booting into Linux and turn it back on before booting into Windows. There are workarounds to that, but they're not beginner friendly.
You also can't install both Windows and Linux on the same drive. Windows likes to "repair" itself from time to time, which ends up breaking the Linux boot loader.
ThinkPads have a good track record with Linux support.
Hardware with niche features (like multiple screens on a laptop) will be less likely to have drivers for those features on Linux.
Touch screens don't have a standardized way of connecting to a computer, so support will vary and you'll need to Google it to find out if some laptop model is supported. If it is, pick any distro that uses KDE Plasma or GNOME for its desktop environment and you'll be fine. If you're coming from Windows, I would recommend Plasma over GNOME.
Not every Linux distribution supports Secure Boot, but almost all of them do. No need to toggle it depending on your boot target. Dual booting with secure boot works just fine.
With a bootloader signed using Microsoft keys, or a bootloader that needs a MOK to be set up to install third-party keys in the Secure Boot database?
I did the latter and it was a pretty annoying process that would scare away beginners—hence me saying a "workaround" was possible. I'm not using a common distro like Fedora or Ubuntu, though. Is setting it up less painful on those?
I'm using Fedora. Works out of the box. You need to add a MOK if you want to use custom kernel modules (or the current Nvidia drivers). But using the nouveau driver or just a standard installation of not using Nvidia hardware works flawlessly without MOK.
Im using Nvidia. The initial import of the MOK is a bit... strange or scary for non tech people, but afterwards, akmods makes it a breeze. You don't have to think about it. With Fedora 42, akmods regularly failed to build the driver's and I had to restart the build manually after a kernel upgrade, but since I upgraded to Fedora 43, it just works.