Hey everyone! I usually use Windows, but I've had some experience with Linux in the past. I tried out a few lightweight Linux distros on older hardware, but they often felt slow, which is why I ended up sticking with Windows. Now, I want to give Linux another shot on my laptop since Windows occasionally lags. I'm planning to dual boot between Windows on my desktop and Linux on my Lenovo ThinkPad L380 (which has an Intel Core i5 8th gen processor, 16 GB RAM, and a 256 GB SSD). I mainly do research work, coding in Python, and regular tasks like video calls. My question is, will dual booting Linux affect my laptop's performance? I've tried Linux on a VM before and it slowed things down, and I've heard that WSL isn't great either. Should I go ahead with dual booting, or should I just ditch Windows entirely for Linux?
3 Answers
Give dual booting a shot! VMs are fine for testing, but they run two systems concurrently. With dual booting, your laptop's resources are dedicated to one OS at a time. Linux itself shouldn't slow down, but keep in mind that software tends to demand more power over time. With your 8th gen i5, you should be all set for a good while.
When you're using a VM, you're splitting your resources between both systems, which can cause lags—especially on an older machine. With dual booting, that's not a problem since you run one OS at a time.
Dual booting won't slow down your laptop like a VM would, since only the OS you're currently running takes up resources. However, some older hardware can have compatibility issues with Linux, so it might be a good idea to try a live image first to test if everything works smoothly.
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