Hey folks, I'm considering dual booting Linux on my laptop but I've never really done anything like this before. I heard I might need to disconnect my internal SSD to set up Linux on an external SSD, which is honestly a bit daunting. Here are my main questions: 1. Is it possible to dual boot with Windows on my internal drive and Linux on an external SSD? 2. I've got a 240GB SSD—will that be enough for Linux? 3. What are the important things to keep in mind when setting up a dual boot? 4. What's a good Linux distribution for dual booting? I'm mainly looking to test it out because I'm having issues with Windows Mixed Reality drivers and thought Linux might have better support. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
4 Answers
Thanks for the info! I'm still a bit worried about losing data or whether the external SSD will perform well.
Yes, you can definitely dual boot with your internal drive running Windows and Linux on your external SSD. As for the SSD size, 240GB is more than enough—most base Linux installs only take up about 5-10GB. Just make sure to install the `os-prober` package if you're using GRUB, which will help you select which OS to boot up from the GRUB menu. As for the best Linux for dual booting, choose one that you're comfortable with; Mint or PopOS are popular and user-friendly.
You actually don't need to disconnect your internal drive. Just manually partition your drives instead of going with the default settings. This way, you can avoid sharing an EFI boot partition with Windows. Check out a tutorial on YouTube for how to manually partition with Mint. It's called the "something else option." Just make sure you select the correct drive during installation!
I've tried this too, and I was frustrated by the slow speeds of USB. Make sure you get a high-speed cable!
Just a heads up, I tried dual booting and only had issues with Linux Mint wanting to mess with my internal NVME drive. I've successfully installed other distros like Manjaro and Fedora on external SSDs without any hassle. Also, just so you know, you might want to check your external SSD's connection type because USB connections can sometimes be slow.
Thanks for clarifying! I was worried about messing things up.