I could do that, but how does Linux see/interact with my Windows stuff? Am I double-installing games to run-as-Windows with something like Proton? (like a Linux install and a Windows install on the old drive?)
It doesn’t, they operate as two separate logical systems. You can still access your windows drive from your Linux OS, but you aren’t necessarily running anything off of that drive.
I would personally just reinstall everything on the Linux drive.
Linux can mount windows drives (I don’t recommend it, but it can if you need a file).
Windows cannot mount Linux drives (in theory ext2fsd can do it but it’s massive pain and it no longer works for me).
If you install a game, either it works on Linux out of the box (it’s native) or it works under proton, in which case steam will take care of that for you in most cases and at worst you have to change a single setting. Visit protondb to learn what games work and don’t work on Linux.
Honestly just get a second drive
I could do that, but how does Linux see/interact with my Windows stuff? Am I double-installing games to run-as-Windows with something like Proton? (like a Linux install and a Windows install on the old drive?)
It doesn’t, they operate as two separate logical systems. You can still access your windows drive from your Linux OS, but you aren’t necessarily running anything off of that drive.
I would personally just reinstall everything on the Linux drive.
Linux can mount windows drives (I don’t recommend it, but it can if you need a file).
Windows cannot mount Linux drives (in theory ext2fsd can do it but it’s massive pain and it no longer works for me).
If you install a game, either it works on Linux out of the box (it’s native) or it works under proton, in which case steam will take care of that for you in most cases and at worst you have to change a single setting. Visit protondb to learn what games work and don’t work on Linux.