For example, I saw a post the other day detailing how to set up a Brother laser printer on Kinoite. That’s not something I would have initially considered a potential problem to be solved. Another I ran into some years ago had to do with an Edimax WiFi dongle that used some weirdly specific Realtek 8812 radio, for which you had to set up the driver via dkms. A little prep and knowledge in advance would have saved days of searching online.
I’ve started a personal to-do list of things to research and make sure I have all my ducks in a row before I make the full-time switch on my main desktop, so besides the usual “back up your files” advice, I’m hoping y’all can point out some QoL things I and others may often miss!
You may have missed that the best approach is not to switch but to dual-boot.
I never dual-booted and I noticed I escaped a few traps. At best I’d base the decision on some research whether or not there is a way to run your irreplaceably essential software.
If you still need both, it’s an okay option, though it can be a little challenging to set up and maintain if you’re not as tech savvy. But in that case, to address the original question: learning how to restore your bootloader would be helpful.
But if running Windows in a VM works for what you need, that’s an option too (that’s what I do).
Or if you want to play around with Linux before committing, running it from a USB drive is also fine.
Windows VM is what I plan to do. I’m already running Bazzite full time on a spare laptop acting as an HTPC, and I’ve dabbled for the last several years and feel comfortable in the command line, so I don’t really see a need to waste an entire drive or partition just for Windows.
That’s good advice, though, to learn how to fix the bootloader. That’s something I don’t currently know how to do, so I’ll get on that! Thanks!
Bootloader stuff is less important if you’re not dual booting. Windows has a tendency to attempt to rewrite the bootloader when it updates.
But if you’re interested, it never hurts to learn about your BL!
Treat yourself with a nice new fast SSD and install it on that. Dual booting on the same drive is asking for Windows update to “randomly” nuke your bootloader.
I have two drives, but I don’t really want to be part of the AI/Recall machine anymore. I’ll install Windows in a VM for the rare times I absolutely need it and forget about it the rest of the time.