Yesterday, July 1st, they announced the Alpha release of this next-generation mod manager and their new Product Manager got in touch to mention they “would be really keen to get feedback from Linux users”. So this is your chance to ensure Linux (and Steam Deck) finally become a first-class citizen for game modding.
There should be a a button that you can press repeatedly to open up a boot menu - it can be the delete key, f2, etc.
Depending on how new your laptop is, you may need to disable something called “Secure Boot”. Keep in mind if your windows installation is encrypted with BitLocker or whatever else Windows is using these days. If it is encrypted, and you have secure boot enabled you may run into issues booting back into Windows - it will freak out that secure boot was disabled and require your encryption key.
At least, that’s what happened with my ROG Zephyrus M16 - I had to find my BitLocker key to boot into Windows and then decrypt it using the settings menu.
Also, if you want to be able to use both Windows and Linux - see if your laptop has an expansion port for a second hard drive. Windows historically has screwed over dual booted Linux grub with updates, and if you can just boot to a entirely different drive that won’t happen.
It’s at least 5 years old. I’ll look into secure boot. I wouldn’t be against ditching windows entirely but I’m not sure I’m up for transferring all my files over right now. No way my laptop supports another drive unfortunately
Yeah, I may catch flak but I wouldn’t be inclined to ditch windows altogether. Unless you literally only do web browsing on your laptop, there’s a high likelihood you may run into a few things that need troubleshooting to get working under Linux, and dual being able to switch back to Windows seamlessly is a huge help/comfort.
If you can find the model number or service tag, that would be a big help for troubleshooting.
There should be a sticker under your laptop with a bunch of tiny text, or if I recall correctly you can use System Information. See this article
That’s good advice, but I’d put forward that you can do all your troubleshooting in a live install so you can bail if you need to. Chances are most things just work and then it’s easier to hit the button.
I only do audio production on my laptop. All browsing is come on my phone whenever possible. The software in my workflow is all Linux compatible and the distros I’m interested in are geared toward that focus. That said I would appreciate the convenience of having windows for now still. Especially since there are some plugins I occasionally use which unfortunately aren’t Linux compatible.