Lenovo, should I install dual boot or not

[jazz.h]

Hello!
I just bought Lenovo IdeaPad 3 17ALC6 for my teenager son, it's 17.3" with AMD Lucienne Ryzen 5 5500U, 8GB of ram and m2.ssd 512gb, witnout OS.
He will be abroad in the next year, meaning I have to enable this PC for everyday surf and office apps, so Windows 10 and MS Office is a must. I'm thinking if I should install Mint Mate in dual boot, in order to exist as a backup solution, in case viruses take over windows. I'm always installing dual boot on every laptop I have. But this time I'm thinking if dual boot can produce some errors after windows update, rewritting bootloader etc...
What do you think, given the cucomstances that I won't be present to inspect the possible issues, would it be less headache to install windows 10 only in this case?

[Catsbark]

Hi, jazz.h. I'm nowhere near being an expert, but you have only 512 GB of storage to work with. Win10 will use a lot of it. I'd probably invest in an external drive, a flash drive and some imaging software. Make an image of a stable, working Win10 installation and teach your son how to update it with stable, working versions of Win10 when updates happen, and how to restore from his most recent image. Ideally, he'll be able to keep 3 or 4 images on one drive (in case a compromised version sneaks by for a while).

[Pierre]

it's actually easier to pre-prepare an vacant drive,
for any dual_boot scenario, that it would be with the one system.

thus, use the Gparted program, on the LinuxMint Live Media,
to set 1 - 2 partitions for each operating system.

it would be best, to utilize the EFI / GPT system on the vacant drive, as well.

then Install the Windows System .. first
and then the LinuxMint System .. afterwards.

[AwesomeOpossum74]

Would Office Online/365 be a good solution?

The problem with a dual-boot configuration is that the user is only likely to use the OS they find most useful. If MS Office is a must, then why install Linux and LibreOffice at all? Better to teach him good backup technique, safe browsing, and to make sure he keeps his antivirus/malware definitions updated.

Hi, jazz.h. I'm nowhere near being an expert, but you have only 512 GB of storage to work with. Win10 will use a lot of it. I'd probably invest in an external drive, a flash drive and some imaging software. Make an image of a stable, working Win10 installation and teach your son how to update it with stable, working versions of Win10 when updates happen, and how to restore from his most recent image. Ideally, he'll be able to keep 3 or 4 images on one drive (in case a compromised version sneaks by for a while).

When you buy a machine with Windows 10 from a big box store, it'll have all sorts of bloatware. But the amount seems to depend on the size of the drive. A 128gb drive will have 64gb taken up. A 256gb drive will have 128gb taken up. So on and so forth.

But a clean Windows 10 install shouldn't be more than 10-15gb. I'd be more concerned about the absolute bloat that comes with MS Office. Easily, and ridiculously, 50gb.

[RollyShed]

I just bought Lenovo IdeaPad 3 17ALC6 for my teenager son, it's 17.3" with AMD Lucienne Ryzen 5 5500U, 8GB of ram and m2.ssd 512gb, witnout OS.

A good start.

He will be abroad in the next year, meaning I have to enable this PC for everyday surf and office apps, so Windows 10 and MS Office is a must.
We specifically loaded Linux Mint for offshore work for security.

"so Windows 10 and MS Office is a must". Why?

What can Windows do and Office specifically do that Linux and LibreOffice not do?

I'm thinking if I should install Mint Mate in dual boot,

Why MATE? I'd recommend Cinnamon. Doing that, dual boot, is just going to be a hassle as Microsoft keeps killing the dual boot option. Plenty of Mint users noting that problem.

But this time I'm thinking if dual boot can produce some errors after windows update, rewriting bootloader etc...

Exactly.

What do you think, given the circumstances that I won't be present to inspect the possible issues, would it be less headache to install windows 10 only in this case?

Install Linux Mint Cinnamon and learn how to use LibreOffice, installed by default.
No problems, no update problems. It will simply work and keep working, reliably and safely.

As for the storage size, 500GB, plenty there unless he downloads long YouTube videos every day.

[RIH]

An alternative approach would be to install your desired desktop Mint & then use VirtualBox for Windows.
Set VirtualBox Windows to about 120 GB virtual disk & about 6GB RAM.
The snapshot feature in VirtualBox should mean that there is little danger of losing Windows completely due to viruses, worms or ransomware.
Plus no grub to get polluted.

[Geo1019]

FYI...............
Just got a Lenovo E15 that came with an i5/16GB ram/1TB SSD. It came with Win 10.
Installed the latest VirtualBox and the latest ver. of Mint and it's working like a champ.
(using it right now).. Personally, I wouldn't use a dual boot although many people do.

[jazz.h]

Hi, jazz.h. I'm nowhere near being an expert, but you have only 512 GB of storage to work with. Win10 will use a lot of it. I'd probably invest in an external drive, a flash drive and some imaging software. Make an image of a stable, working Win10 installation and teach your son how to update it with stable, working versions of Win10 when updates happen, and how to restore from his most recent image. Ideally, he'll be able to keep 3 or 4 images on one drive (in case a compromised version sneaks by for a while).

You're right, I think I'll make a separate partition at the end of drive, then make backup with windows image tool, of the fresh instalation + office 365.

[jazz.h]

it's actually easier to pre-prepare an vacant drive,
for any dual_boot scenario, that it would be with the one system.

thus, use the Gparted program, on the LinuxMint Live Media,
to set 1 - 2 partitions for each operating system.

it would be best, to utilize the EFI / GPT system on the vacant drive, as well.

then Install the Windows System .. first
and then the LinuxMint System .. afterwards.

I'm not sure if I understood you well...

[jazz.h]

Would Office Online/365 be a good solution?

It's a must because the high school dictates it.

[jazz.h]

"so Windows 10 and MS Office is a must". Why?
What can Windows do and Office specifically do that Linux and LibreOffice not do?

High school standard.

[jazz.h]

FYI...............
Just got a Lenovo E15 that came with an i5/16GB ram/1TB SSD. It came with Win 10.
Installed the latest VirtualBox and the latest ver. of Mint and it's working like a champ.
(using it right now).. Personally, I wouldn't use a dual boot although many people do.

I would probably need to buy 8gb ram instead of 4gb ram stick... for vbox running in windows 10.

[AwesomeOpossum74]

Does your son know how to rewrite GRUB after Windows overwrites the boot partition during an update? Yep, it happens, too often.

Would Office Online/365 be a good solution?

It's a must because the high school dictates it.

Then maybe look into Office Online/365? If there are issues with the PC, he can use another one.

[missmoondog]

if it has an empty drive and you need windows, why install windows 10 when windows 11 is most current? although both suck and will mess up boot loader during updates, i'd still install at least the most current windows version, if i had to use that os.

personally, i see no use in dual booting now a days unless wanting to game and again personally, i see no sense in gaming on a computer either. get a real gaming console if you want to do that.

[AndyMH]

I just bought Lenovo IdeaPad 3 17ALC6 for my teenager son, it's 17.3" with AMD Lucienne Ryzen 5 5500U, 8GB of ram and m2.ssd 512gb, witnout OS.

Back when I was working, MS office was a must. I ran office2016 in a win7 VM using virtualbox booting mint off an ssd. This was on a T430 thinkpad with 8GB RAM, I gave the VM 4GB. I would expect win10 would be okay in 4GB.

[Geo1019]

On my Lenovo E15 16G Ram/1TB/i5 I gave VirtualBox 2cores/8mb for Mint/Cinnamon. It's running smooth so far.

[jazz.h]

I decided not to go with dual boot, maybe I'll install mint into persistent external usb 3.0 drive soon, and he can run Linux from there when needed or when he wants to surf a lot.
In the meantime after all the driver installation and office 365, I saved the windows partition image to external microsdcard with Macrium reflect free, for easy restoring later.

[Reddog1]

Running Mint in a VM would work perfectly. Boot and log-in to Windows and a couple of clicks of the mouse starts Mint. VirtualBox runs fine in W10, with no altering of your physical W10 partition, either. There is also the ability to switch from a running guest to the host (and vice versa) with the single click of a mouse, because the systems are running simultaneously. After the first VM, installing VM's becomes a no-brainer. The Virtual Machines section of this forum can help you, should you get stuck that first time.