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Discussion on: Intro to Linux for New Developers

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aortizoj15 profile image
Alexis Ortiz Ojeda • Edited

Hello! Would anyone point me in the direction of how I could use an external hard drive to boot into Linux while still being able to boot into Windows as normal if I wanted to? Thank you!

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bradtaniguchi profile image
Brad • Edited

I'm not sure if I ever ran into anyone doing this, so I have no idea if its possible.

You don't need 2 hard-disks to duel dual boot with Windows and Linux, having 1 larger hard drive should be fine. Windows usually creates some annoying problems with handling the boot up steps, so most of the time it takes some tweaking to get to the Linux installation. I recommend looking into duel booting with your specific distro, most popular distros have tons of documentation and helpers to install the distro along-side windows. 😄

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ghost profile image
Ghost

it's dual booting not duel, no need to get combative :)

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aortizoj15 profile image
Alexis Ortiz Ojeda

Cool thank you will check it out!

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amberjones profile image
AmberJ

Agreed! Thanks for the helpful comment!

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ghost profile image
Ghost

Yes, it's in fact the easier and safest way to make your first install

1) you'll need a "install device" (Install DVD or USB stick with the installer), you get it on the website of the distro of choice, follow their instructions on how to make it bootable.

2) Boot your installer system, you have to turn on your PC with the "install device", if it just boot your regular OS you have to change the boot order of your BIOS, pay attention to the POST messages at boot and your motherboard should offer you a key to display a temporary boot drive, if not you can configure the boot order in your BIOS (is always good to let it check USB before your HD/SSD)

3) After that, your system should boot from your "install device", having pluged-in your target external device you can install the system there following the installer, just as any regular hard drive. Make sure you choose the right HD or you will overwrite your Windows install. Just at the end of the installation you'll have to install the bootloader, that's the little program that manages the boot of your available OSs. Make sure you install it (Grub is probably the default one) IN THE EXTERNAL DEVICE, that is kinda important, as you installed Linux in the external device, the installer should asume that drive as target for the bootloader, but check anyway, if it installs it in your internal device instead of booting Windows by default (without the external HD pluged), a boot menu would appear, you can still choose Windows in that list (Linux installer can see your existing Windows and automagically add the entry for you) but that is annoying, make sure you install the bootloader on your external drive and you will not even touch your internal drive.

4) If everything went well, you're ready, just reboot with your external HD pluged and it shoud boot (if it doesn't, remmember step 2). Linux doesn't really care if the drive is internal or external, SATA, USB, etc.

  • depending on the distro you chose that HD should work on other PCs too, as you may have realized, in the installation process you didn't have to dealt with drivers, the installer took care of that based on what it saw pluged, each distro have their own criteria on how much "extra" kernel modules ("drivers") includes (for example digital cameras, you may not had your camera pluged when you installed Linux but it probably install the kernel modules anyway just in case), some distros install the bare minimum to make a more streamlined system, others may ask you and the easiest like Ubuntu, Mint, PopOS! and the like, just install everything you can think of so you don't need to deal with that, and for a modern(ish) system the overhead in not relevant. Because of that if some of your HW is not recognized at first you can try another distro that may have more kernel modules ready. Later on you will learn more details, your first install is just to get you ready :) and you'll probably try many distros after that (distrohop is the technical term) and then you'll fall inlove with one and forget all others, but once in a while you'll get curious, what would it be with that other sexy new distro?, what what I really want is some BSD? what about somethink a little kinky like OpenBSD AND your main distro? on the same drive?, of course do it carefully, use protection and always check twice the drive you are installing on or thing will get messy.