3 ms·

> Were they ever different tho? According to many people on HN, they changed completely, and they have nothing to do with the old epoch of Ballmer and Gates. Y

> Were they ever different tho? According to many people on HN, they changed completely, and they have nothing to do with the old epoch of Ballmer and Gates. Yet, I was never convinced by the "but they embrace open source now" argument: * their financing of SCO in the "Linux is illegal" ridiculous attempt to discredit their competition that took over a decade * the contempt for their users in various ways, from gray patterns with local vs MS accounts to ads in the start menu and other spyware with settings that reset after random upgrades to "defaults" convenient only for MS * if they profess so much love for Linux and spend so much on kernel development (actually, that's mostly for Hyper-V etc.), why they don't do one simple thing and recognize Linux as a Desktop OS that you can install along Windows? Instead, in 2023 you have to still install Windows first to avoid problems. Linux doesn't have this problem and will recognize an existing Windows installation and will even add it to its boot menu. Plus one million other tricks they played that shows the changes are just superficial. *

nottorp 3y ago
> According to many people on HN, they changed completely, and they have nothing to do with the old epoch of Ballmer and Gates. Yeah right. Why is there spam on my windows 10 start menu? > Instead, in 2023 you have to still install Windows first to avoid problems. You do? Got a new Linux desktop. I'll eventually put Windows on it. I was planning on installing it on a separate SSD just in case. Will that destroy my Linux install? Should I unscrew and remove the Linux SSD to install Windows?
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  In my experience the worst it does is setting itself to boot automatically. It won't mess with secureboot keys or anything. In my case, I removed the pc's default ones and installed my own and signed ms's key with mine. It works fine.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    > In my experience the worst it does is setting itself to boot automatically. In UEFI? If I have the OSes on separate physical disks I'm planning to use the bios to select what boots.
    - vladvasiliu 3y ago
      There's still a "default", at least on my PC. But yeah, using the uefi works fine to choose between windows and linux, even if you only have a single /efi partition (I use efistub for linux, not a dedicated bootloader). If you add custom boot options, they won't be removed after a windows install, it only adds itself to the list and sets itself as the first in line. Afterwards, it doesn't seem to touch that anymore, but YMMV with "big" updates.
    - speeder 3y ago
      I had OSes on separate disks. Win7 and Arch, used UEFI to choose who to boot. Updated to Win10 and it somehow completely broke Linux boot. I could choose on UEFI to boot Linux but it wouldn't work. Eventually I gave up and reinstalled Linux
- 0x457 3y ago
  I have rEFInd installed on window's EFI partition, and it boots either windows or linux (on separate drive though). It's been like that since skylake came out, and I never had issues with it. As long as you're not installing linux bootloader in the same EFI partition, it's not going to cause any issues. If you're using MBR, then you should probably stop doing it.

nottorp 3y ago

> According to many people on HN, they changed completely, and they have nothing to do with the old epoch of Ballmer and Gates. Yeah right. Why is there spam on my windows 10 start menu? > Instead, in 2023 you have to still install Windows first to avoid problems. You do? Got a new Linux desktop. I'll eventually put Windows on it. I was planning on installing it on a separate SSD just in case. Will that destroy my Linux install? Should I unscrew and remove the Linux SSD to install Windows?

vladvasiliu 3y ago
In my experience the worst it does is setting itself to boot automatically. It won't mess with secureboot keys or anything. In my case, I removed the pc's default ones and installed my own and signed ms's key with mine. It works fine.
- nottorp 3y ago
  > In my experience the worst it does is setting itself to boot automatically. In UEFI? If I have the OSes on separate physical disks I'm planning to use the bios to select what boots.
  - vladvasiliu 3y ago
    There's still a "default", at least on my PC. But yeah, using the uefi works fine to choose between windows and linux, even if you only have a single /efi partition (I use efistub for linux, not a dedicated bootloader). If you add custom boot options, they won't be removed after a windows install, it only adds itself to the list and sets itself as the first in line. Afterwards, it doesn't seem to touch that anymore, but YMMV with "big" updates.
  - speeder 3y ago
    I had OSes on separate disks. Win7 and Arch, used UEFI to choose who to boot. Updated to Win10 and it somehow completely broke Linux boot. I could choose on UEFI to boot Linux but it wouldn't work. Eventually I gave up and reinstalled Linux
0x457 3y ago
I have rEFInd installed on window's EFI partition, and it boots either windows or linux (on separate drive though). It's been like that since skylake came out, and I never had issues with it. As long as you're not installing linux bootloader in the same EFI partition, it's not going to cause any issues. If you're using MBR, then you should probably stop doing it.