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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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installing different distro on separate drive (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago by WeebLife@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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I am running mint on my main pc. I want to create an external drive with a different Linux OS, Nobara, but want to know if there's any chance it will affect my mint install. I normally remove all the drives in my system except the one I'm installing a new OS to, but that's less feasible with my desktop as I have several NVME drives behind my GPU. Can I leave all my drives connected, plug in a seperate SSD through USB, boot into Nobara live and install on that drive without it affecting my mint install? Also, if I do that will it put the EFI file on the seperate SSD?

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[–] OneCardboardBox@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Can I leave all my drives connected, plug in a seperate SSD through USB, boot into Nobara live and install on that drive without it affecting my mint install?

Yes. Just double-check every part of the install process so you don't write to the wrong device.

Also, if I do that will it put the EFI file on the seperate SSD?

Probably yes (depends on the options you pick during the install process). The external drive will get its own boot partition with appropriate EFI files. Then to boot from it, you would select the external drive in your UEFI.

I use rEFInd as my EFI bootloader: It lets me chain load other boot options (external drives) without touching my motherboard UEFI settings. I leave it installed to my main boot partition, but it scans for other bootable partitions at startup. Then it auto-populates a selector list of my main install, or whatever other external devices are plugged in. It can chain load GRUB, other EFI bootloaders, Windows, etc from these devices, so you don't have to worry about compatibility with whatever bootloader the OS expects to use.

[–] bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

GRUB also has the ability to scan for other OS's on separate drives

[–] WeebLife@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I had to look up a guide for how to manually partition the drive, but it's working! And it didn't affect my other drives. Thanks.

[–] bodaciousFern@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

You should do some research into using lvm - essentially one partition (pv) and named groups (vg), virtual partitions (lv's) that you can grow or shrink on demand as long as there's some free disk space still available

I like to name them by os + drive type, e.g. volume group names for you could be "mintnvme" and "nobusb"

[–] WeebLife@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

That sounds like it would be useful. I'll check it out. Thanks for the tip!

[–] WeebLife@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Thanks! Thats very helpful. I wasn't aware that software existed.