I'm planning to replace a family member's HDD with an SSD while they are visiting me, and I thought about installing Linux on a spare SSD I have lying around. Would it be possible to install Linux on this SSD, then give it to them to simply swap in their laptop and boot up? Are there any specific considerations I should keep in mind?
3 Answers
It may work, but some manual adjustments could be needed once they install the SSD in their laptop. Things like disabling Secure Boot or messing with the BIOS boot order might come into play. If they have decent Linux skills, they should be fine, but someone who's brand new might find it a bit tricky.
Yes, you can definitely do that! Just make sure their laptop supports booting from USB, especially if it's a newer model. I've had success swapping SD cards between various Chromebooks, but it can sometimes require a bit of tweaking when switching between different machines.
I've switched drives with pre-installed systems between different computers, and the results have been mixed. Sometimes it works perfectly fine even with different hardware, while other times it doesn't work as expected. Just keep in mind the hardware differences, and configure the system accordingly.
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