I'm considering moving from Windows to Linux and have been looking at Pop!_OS because I use my PC for both gaming and college. I have some basic computer troubleshooting experience but am still learning. Before making the switch, I'd like advice on installation, storage drives, and graphics drivers:
1. Should I physically disconnect my HDD and secondary SSD before installing Linux on my current C: drive, or is careful drive selection during setup enough?
2. Can I install the operating system onto a USB flash drive and later transfer it to my internal drive, or is the USB normally just used as temporary installation media?
3. Does Pop!_OS include NVIDIA drivers, and how soon are driver updates generally released after NVIDIA publishes them?
4. If I later replace my NVIDIA graphics card with an AMD card, will existing NVIDIA drivers cause problems, or can they simply remain unused?
I'd appreciate any practical advice, especially from people who use Pop!_OS for gaming and everyday schoolwork.
2 Answers
The USB is usually only installation media: write the ISO to it, boot from it, choose the internal SSD as the installation destination, reboot, and remove the USB. You can leave the other drives connected, but disconnecting them lowers the chance of accidentally formatting the wrong one. Either way, back up anything important first.
You may be overestimating the difficulty of graphics drivers. NVIDIA drivers can be installed separately on many distributions, and switching to AMD is normally just a matter of replacing the card and allowing the system to use the AMD driver. Any leftover NVIDIA packages can remain dormant or be removed later. AMD support is often very convenient on Linux because its drivers are generally integrated into the kernel and graphics stack.
For the installation, you normally create a bootable USB installer, boot the computer from it, and install the operating system onto the internal SSD. After installation finishes and the computer reboots, you remove the USB; it isn’t meant to hold the installed system unless you intentionally create a portable installation. The USB can also run a temporary live session for testing hardware and the desktop first.
You don’t strictly need to disconnect your other drives, but it can be a good safety precaution if you’re worried about selecting the wrong disk. Make reliable backups and carefully verify the target drive before starting. Some firmware also lets you disable individual drives temporarily.
Pop!_OS provides an NVIDIA-specific installer image with the necessary proprietary drivers. If you later change to an AMD graphics card, the NVIDIA drivers generally won’t interfere because the hardware is no longer present; you can remove them afterward if you want to keep the system tidy.
That clears up the USB installation process and the graphics-card question. Is Pop!_OS generally a good beginner-friendly choice for gaming?
Thanks for explaining that the USB is just an installer and that leftover NVIDIA packages shouldn’t prevent an AMD card from working.