Policy on Dual Booting Windows and Linux

Engineering IT is happy to support desktop installs of either the Wash U Windows image or any user’s desired Linux distribution. Some students and faculty have had the desire to use Linux and Windows software on the same computer. Engineering IT currently does not support dual booting Linux and Windows to accomplish this. There are a few reasons for this, including Windows updates having a tendency to render the Linux partition unable to boot at best, or erasing the Linux partition at worst.

We are happy to recommend and help with two alternatives. Windows Hyper-V is able to set up an Ubuntu installation. The instructions are fairly straightforward to setting this up. We are also happy to help get this configured.

Alternatively, we have a Linux Research Cluster that is well documented and already includes a lot of software that is commonly needed in McKelvey School of Engineering. If you need access or have particular software not currently available in the Cluster, please reach out to us and we will be happy to help you get access or look into installing preferred software on the cluster.