Can I test my Windows apps and games on Linux Mint from a USB drive?

You can experiment from the live system, but I would not treat the results as final. A persistent live drive or a real Linux installation on an external drive gives you room to install Wine, configure it, and test programs across reboots. Also be prepared for some of your Delphi tools to require porting to Lazarus rather than running unchanged.

A standard live USB normally stores changes in RAM, so you can install Wine and try applications during that session, but everything will disappear when you reboot. It also has practical limits on available space and memory. A live USB configured with persistence can retain installed packages and settings, although it may be slower. For more involved testing, installing Linux fully onto a separate USB or external drive is usually more reliable, while keeping in mind that ordinary flash drives are not ideal for heavy ongoing writes.

The only dependable way to know whether a particular Delphi program or reader works is to test that exact software. Wine compatibility can vary by application, and a live environment may not include the graphics drivers or other setup you need. For programs that do not work under Wine, a Windows virtual machine using KVM can be a better fallback. Dual-booting is another practical way to keep Windows available while you evaluate Linux.