You can run a virtual machine from Windows with any Debian-based distribution installed just for this purpose. The process is very straight forward and knowing how to run a virtual machine may very well be worth your time, since there are many uses for it.
Another alternative is to create a bootable USB stick so that you can run Linux without install it.
[does anyone know whether] Does the system is rooted by default on /e/ ? Or is it rootable easily ?
Wrote several posts ago in this thread:
In order to root /e/, I did this :
Assuming that :
adb sideload Magisk-v20.4.zip
Final observations :
adb root and no application root )Just installed it, and extremely happy with it, Fairphone + no Apple/Google involved! Everything works great, except for some very minor thingies. Thank you very much, I’m very grateful. It feels like I’m finally dodging the bad guys (well at least, phone-wise).
I put /e/ on my FP3 2 weeks ago and rooted it just as lost_geographer described. I’m very satisfied with /e/ but I have random system crashes. The phone just turns off. Sometimes while I’m using it, sometimes while I’m not. Most times it happens when I see the the light blinking because of a message I got and try to unlock the phone with fingerprint, after a short vibration the phone is turned off. It also happens more frequently while I’m at my university and connected to eduroam. Is there some way to track this in more detail?
Thank you for these instructions!
I followed them and now whenever I boot my Fairphone 3, there would be an initial screen warning that there’s not way to check my system for corruption that makes me wait 5 seconds before booting /e/ OS. Is this normal/expected given the unlocked bootloader and I can safely ignore it? Thanks!
Yes. This is perfectly normal.
Got it, thank you! 
Hi Bert, I am at exactly this same (anxious) point to really go ahead and install /e/ on my new FP3. ADB and |Fastboot are installed and running properly, bootloader on the device is unlocked. I downloaded the dev file on my pc.
You are quite right that the explanation on the install page is indeed somewhat incomplete. Like you, I am also trying to figure out in what folder I should unzip this dev file in Win 10. Apparently you found out, but I can’t see that you mention the folder. Should it be unzipped in the platform-tools folder on your pc? Because if it’s not, then how can the pc/adb (in cmd) ‘find’ the unzipped os-files?
I assume it should not be unzipped on the device itself?
And btw, in cmd (on Win 10) ‘unzip’ is an ‘unknown command’. Even if you add the pathway to the unzipped folder.
Hope you or someone else can shed some light on this, so I can really move on…!
Thank you!
Hi Jella,
I unzipped the file under windows file-manager and not in the terminal-application-window.
Yes, if I recall it right, I unzipped the image-files to the platform-tools folder.
I just took care, that I was working in the directory, where the files were located (so I did not need to add a path).
I keep my fingers crossed. And if the files should not be found, I guess this can do no harm.
Hi,
I can confirm that you have to unzip the files in the platform tools folder. When you are in Terminal, you have to work from that folder, otherwise it won’t work.
It’s true maybe they should have made it clear.
Maybe they didn’t because it’s probably kind of obvious when you know your way around that kind of thing!
The thing is: strictly speaking it does not matter all all where you unzip the folder to if you know how the command line works (nowadays most people usually never need to).
It seems that it’s easiest for most people to just put everything into the same folder. But then you got to hope that not two archives contain files with the same name. For the platform tools and custom ROM images this seems to be rarely the case, so it’s ok here. But strictly speaking it’s not a requirement.
But then you have to add the path to the files to the command. And that explanation is clearly missing.
And who - in times of graphic user interfaces - is still used to command-line operations.
Clearly a Linux user has done the explanation. 
Has anyone already successfully kept root during an /e/ update without the need of a wipe?
You still have to flash the Magisk zip using the adb sideload after each update.
I didn’t wipe the data after the last 2 updates of /e/ and I had no problems apparently.
Thank you all for your reply! So now I should be ready to go.
Actually, I am only partially familiar with working in the command line, so indeed an /e/-installation explanation that is a bit more fool-proof could help, as long as there is no /e/-installer yet.
Yes, absolutely! Thanks. I just missed one bit of info (where to
unzip the DEV file). Now I’m all set.
You can unzip it anywhere on your computer. Just remember the path where you unziped it and use it before running the fastboot command like cd /pathto/theunzippedfolder/
Perfect. Thanks again.