I'm considering trying out Linux while still keeping Windows 11, and I'm a bit confused about how to go about it. I'm looking at CachyOS since I have a gaming laptop and do some gaming, but I have a 512 GB SSD and can only spare up to 120 GB for Linux. My concern is that modern games take up a lot of space—often around 100 GB—so I'm uncertain if I can actually play any decent games on Linux with such limited capacity.
Another thing that's stressing me out is how to properly partition the free space. Some videos say I only need a /boot/efi partition and a root partition, while others recommend adding a swap partition and a home partition. I don't want to mess up my system, so I'm really looking for some balanced advice on how to proceed. Also, I've seen recommendations for GRUB as a boot manager, but some suggest rEFInd is better. Can anyone help me untangle this? Thanks!
2 Answers
Check out the resources page I've come across; it can be quite helpful! Make sure to back up your data regularly and consider testing out things in a virtual machine first. Also, it's essential to fully understand commands before executing them.
If you plan on playing larger games, you might need an external SSD since CachyOS itself recommends at least 50 GB. That would leave you with about 70 GB for games. What specific games are you thinking of playing on Linux?

Right now, I’m not focused on gaming, but I do a lot of coding and web development, along with normal daily tasks.