I'm interested in starting my journey with Linux on my secondary Lenovo laptop, which currently has Windows loaded on it. I'd like to boot Linux directly from my hard drive since I don't have a USB drive available right now. My goal is to have Linux boot up without formatting the hard drive, and ideally just access the Linux files without storing everything on the hard drive permanently. I have no prior experience with Linux and I'm planning to try Linux Mint first. I'm hoping this method is feasible, and if not, I'd appreciate a clear explanation of the process. I want to test it out on this lightweight laptop before considering it as my daily driver, especially since it's running quite slowly at the moment.
1 Answer
You might want to check out Puppy Linux! It can boot from USB but does so with a persistent feature, allowing it to keep your settings and saved files. It's very user-friendly for beginners and similar in ease of use to Mint. Alternatively, you could full-install Mint onto a USB drive and configure your BIOS settings to boot from it. I haven't tried Mint this way, but most Linux distributions support it.
Thanks! I actually have an SD card I can format; do you think that would work?