Hi everyone.
I’m presently using Windows 8 and I’m planning to install Linux too.
Want to know if it will have any effect on my laptop’s speed?
Any help would be appreciated. J
Windows 8 means you have UEFI instead of old BIOS, and this is a bit more tricky to setup with dual boot, if that is your plan. I'd suggest you make Windows recovery disks if you haven't already (most brand name computers have an app for this) and also backup all critical data on your Windows partition. For a newbie to install a dual boot with UEFI there is a very real chance you can mess up your system and you will have to reinstall Windows from scratch. When you pick your Linux distro, you must use the 64-bit versions for UEFI support, and you should investigate to be sure the distro you want will work with UEFI (all the big distros are okay, like Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, etc).
You should Google "dual boot WIndows 8 and whatever distro you want" to look for specific tips on this process. But every computer OEM (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc) can implement UEFI differently, so you kind of have to feel your way through the installation yourself. You very often have to adjust the UEFI settings, so you need to get an idea of what is going on.
Another way to run Linux is to install it in a virtual machine instead of dual booting. This is often easier, and maybe this is what you intend to do. This may affect your computer's speed as the virtual machine needs some of the system RAM to run. They usually run pretty well together though, and it's a good way to test out Linux without the chance of messing up your Windows installation and boot process.
Good luck!
