I'm considering dual booting my main laptop with Windows 11 and a Linux distro, like Arch or Mint, specifically to separate my school work from gaming. I've used Linux Mint and Zorin OS on older laptops, but not on this one. My gaming (Fortnite and Roblox) will stay on Windows because they don't play well with Linux. Currently, I have about 100GB available on my SSD. What's a good amount of space to allocate for the Linux partition? Also, which Linux distribution would suit my needs for school work best?
3 Answers
For school work, you actually don’t need that much space on Linux. I’d say around 20 to 50 GB should be plenty, especially if most of your stuff is cloud-based. If you plan to run more programs later, you might want to allocate a bit more space just to be safe. Mint, Debian, or Ubuntu could be solid options for what you need. If you want something lightweight, consider Alpine Linux with the XFCE desktop environment.
It's best to have Linux on a separate hard drive if you can manage it, but if you're sticking to one drive, aim for at least 50 GB. That should cover your OS and a good amount of school files. It's also worth noting that you can access your Windows partition from Linux, but it doesn’t work the other way.
If you can, try out Linux on another hard drive; it could save you some headaches down the line if any issues arise. If it has to be on the same drive, 50 GB should be enough for your install and any school work unless your files are particularly large.
Related Questions
How To Get Your Domain Unblocked From Facebook
How To Find A String In a Directory of Files Using Linux