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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Tool to install a linux distro in dual boot directly from Windows? Without live USB (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 weeks ago by linucs@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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I always hear that a normal computer user would never install an OS and that is the main reason Linux has not a higher market share. But I guess what we mean by that is that a user would never create a live usb, access the boot options and boot from there to install the new OS.

Is there a hard technical limitation when it comes to create a tool that installs a linux distro from a "normal" windows exe file, provided that the user first disables secure boot and fast boot (which are things a tool with admin privileges should also be able do on first run)?

Does such a tool already exist?

I feel like there's something I'm missing, forgive my ignorance

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[–] sgtlion@hexbear.net 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Installing dual boot over a default windows installation would be tricky, bordering on infeasible. Because you would need to shrink the windows partition live (which is not supported (and even if you could, requires free space and comes with meaningful risk of data loss)) and alter the UEFI boot entries, which is also very risky and engineered to be protected from unauthorised writes.

Even if you got around all those limitations, Windows can constantly erase your Linux boot entries (thanks Microsoft), making a dual boot-on-one disk setup basically unusable every month which needs to be fixed. So thanks to this Windows behavior, this setup won't work on many systems.

So you'll pretty much only ever be able to install to another disk. And the portion of non-tech savvy users with a spare, unused disk is going to be effectively nonexistent.

Don't get me wrong, an install-from-windows feature would be nice, but I don't think it could feasibly overcome any meaningful barriers.