A friend is seriously considering replacing their ailing laptop with a framework, but we’re in the awkward position of wanting to investigate installing Linux but also needing to order a pre-built machine rather than go with the DIY edition.
Now the non-DIY one comes with Windows 11 pre-installed - is this going to make it difficult to replace the operating system? I heard rumours that 11 can be quite aggressive about not letting other OS’s talk to the BIOS.
Apologies if this has been answered; I did my best searching I promise!
I would hope/expect this didn’t change between the 11th and 12th generation: with some incessant F12 bashing you should get to the BIOS configuration menu. I think this happens before Windows gets its clutches on anything. You can then change the boot order and give preference to a USB key (plug it in for convenience: it should show up!). From that point forward, you should be able to nuke the windows install out of existencce.
When I did it, I wasn’t able to get rid of a defunct Windows bootloader partition. This takes up a tiny bit of disk space and gets picked up by Grub. Windows is not there anymore, so choosing that option doesn’t go anywhere. It would be nice to get rid of it, but it’s hardly in the way.
Nope, won’t be hard at all. At worst just wipe the disk, but if you load with a usb-stick you can wipe the disk and install a new OS easily. Windows can’t exactly do much.
You probably heard about some issues that occur when dual booting. Sometimes Windows will mess with EFI boot entries when it updates. There’s also sometimes issues with BIOS time. Again, these only occur when dual-booting (and are both easy to fix).
It’s actually quite easy to erase all Windows partitions. I’m sure we’d all be glad to help if you run into any trouble.
