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On 18/10/2021 19:39, comrade meowski wrote: > On 18/10/2021 19:12, maceion@xxxxxxxxx wrote: > >> PLEASE, PLEASE >> Install Linux Mint on an *External USB Drive* with GRUB on the external >> USD Drive. >> It is much safer for a newbie than a 'dual single hard disc boot" >> >> This preserves her Windows machine as Windows (It owns that internal >> hard drive) >> When she boots with the *external USB hard Drive* plugged in she has an >> independent Linux system. >> >> I use this for all my old pupils! (Xubuntu for lite use) (Mint for some >> depends on the RAM they have and age of machine) >> Big advantage they preserve and can go back to their Windows machines if >> wanted. >> >> PS This is how I have ben running my own machines since about 2006. >> Only the Vista era ones have had Windows removed and Linux installed to >> internal drive, BUT they all have Knoppix USB key available as >> alternative OS. > > > Honestly chief I wouldn't worry too much about that - whilst I get this > method works well for you and in certain cases can be a good stopgap > solution we've moved on a long way from external USB disks being a good > idea, let alone preferred. > > All the software in question is a lot more mature now, even Windows > (stop laughing there at the back). The bad old days of stuff randomly > clobbering each others bootloaders is well and truly over and UEFI > firmware doesn't care about such trivial things anyway: it retains > previous bootloader entries and doesn't rely on primitive stuff like ye > olden days. > > Modern Linux has spanking new safe NTFS drivers in kernel to manipulate > Windows drives and Windows has safe drivers for Ext4 so you can even > monkey about with the "other" operating system partitions from the > "foreign" one without issues. > > All booting from an external USB drive will get you is a more fragile > bootloader setup and the unlucky OS hosted on the USB drive running at > an absolutely glacial rate compared to the one hosted internally on the > SSD. That speed difference alone will be at least an order of magnitude > and even without any other factors is an absolute deal breaker for > anyone with a SSD equipped computer. Most laptops now have NVME which > will make the difference more like two orders of magnitude! > > That being said different solutions obviously work for different people: > I'm not saying don't do what you're doing, just that it's no longer > really the standard response to say "Dual Booting Linux and Windows: > DON'T DO IT". Nah, it's absolutely fine if that's how someone wants to > roll. > > I suspect that all your sample machines are much, much older and slower > PCs right? If they're all ancient BIOS laptops with mechanical hard > drives then the speed delta between booting an internal OS of the disk > and booting an OS off an external USB flashdrive would be vastly > smaller: probably even comparable. > > On any vaguely modern system with a SSD it'd be madness to leave that > performance on the table and boot from a crappy USB drive. > > I have super modern laptops coming in that are USB3.2 and Thunderbolt > equipped - at that level we're talking 20 or 40Gbps duplex at which > point external boot drives become viable again and rival the internal > NVMEs for throughput. > > Anyway what I'm saying is don't fear the dualboot basically ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ > > Many thanks for this. I much appreciate the explanation. Most of my elderly folk, are on Vista era, Windows 7 era, HDD BIOS machines so there is little speed difference from external USB Boot to internal USB boot as you remark. My own machines are 2014 or earlier, none upgraded to SSD internal drives. They do what I want so acceptable. Speed difference not that much. Although I once thought about replacing the DVD drive with a caddy and a SSD drive, but expense deterred me. I do note, only that the internal drive needs to be big enough to accommodate two OSs, I have had some folk who purchased computers sold with only 32GB internal hard drives. There appeared to be a lot sold in early Windows 10 day. Sold at a price and bought at a low price perhaps. They cannot even update Windows without an external USB key which is what gets them asking for help to solve. Many thanks for this. However without you as my guide I stumble in the dark of 'experience knowledge' only on the machines I am exposed to. So many thanks. There begs the question, if asked , how to remove the additional OS cleanly? (Thinking of a person who dual booted Ubuntu with Windows 81. upgraded to Windows 10 and now would like to remove his Ubuntu set up. At moment i can only think of a fresh install as a clean process. Any pointers -- Regards Eion MacDonald -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG https://mailman.dcglug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq