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kamack38 edited this page Feb 23, 2025 · 8 revisions

Linux and Windows interoperability

Reading Linux filesystem

BTRFS Support

To edit and read files on a btrfs filesystem via the windows explorer install the winbtrfs driver

Decrypting filesystem

To decrypt LUKS encrypted filesystem on Windows you can use WSL and cryptsetup. You can find more information here but it may not be up to date.

Reading Windows filesystem

Reading from BitLocker encrypted device

Using dislocker

Follow the README at dislocker.

Using cryptsetup

To open:

sudo cryptsetup open --type bitlk /dev/sdb1 encrypt_shared
sudo mkdir /mnt/shared
sudo mount -t ntfs3 /dev/mapper/encrypt_shared /mnt/shared

To close:

sudo umount /mnt/shared
sudo cryptsetup close encrypt_shared

cryptsetup man page

auto mount and more

Bluetooth

To pair devices on dual boot setups you need to change the pairing keys on your Linux install so that they are consistent with what Windows is using. To do this install and setup bt-dualboot on Linux.

Read more on ArchWiki

Booting directly to Windows

To set Windows as the default boot entry only for the next boot you can use grub-reboot.

First of all get the number of the boot entry you want to boot into:

sudo grep -i "menuentry '" /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Then run the grub-reboot and reboot:

sudo grub-reboot 4 && reboot

Secure boot

To setup secure boot on ArchLinux or any of its derivatives follow this page.

Read more on ArchWiki

Hibernation

When dual booting Windows and Linux remember to not mount and filesystem as writable on both systems, because this may occur in data loss.

It is possible to hibernate both Windows and Linux at the same time using two ESP partitions on seperate physical drives (there can only be one ESP partition on one drive) though it's not recommended because of potential data loss.

Read more on ArchWiki

Windows apps on Linux

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