Hi,
I got a new company laptop and I want to use it for personal use too, so that i don’t need to take a second, personal laptop with me while travelling.
Of course I don’t want to touch the existing data (it’s a Windows 10 installation on an NVMe SSD) in any way so i bought an SSD with a USB 3.1 connector. During installation Mate offers me to disable Secure Boot which is probably a bad idea, because Windows was installed with Secure Boot enabled and I guess it won’t boot if I disable it now. If I choose to not disable it at least the installer continues.
My main question is, how I can install Mate only on the external SSD in a way, that i need to choose my external SSD on boot up using BIOS/UEFI options (F12 or F8, i don’t remember exactly) but without modifying the internal SSD, for example I don’t want to share the EFI system partition between the two OS, I don’t want to boot into GRUB by default etc.
During the installation process, when you get to the screen that says Erase Disk and install Ubuntu MATE [version] there is a choice at the very bottom called Something Else. From there you can choose which disk to install Ubuntu MATE. Just make sure to choose the correct dev/sda else you’d be overwriting on the Windows 10 installer. If you haven’t installed or put any data within the SSD, just choose the dev/sda with no data in it. Then create the /swap and the ext4.
As for only booting on the external drive, I assume you have to go into the BIOS and remove the internal HDD from the boot options, then put the SSD at the very top of the boot options (if your BIOS can’t detect the SSD, try putting the USB in the top of boot options). Sadly, I’m not sure if this method would still answer your concern about sharing the EFI system partition (since I haven’t necessarily tried this yet).
Right, the SSD is brand new, so thats not a problem, I'll go with an LVM installation as I usually do. [quote="ken.athomos, post:2, topic:15820"]
As for only booting on the external drive, I assume you have to go into the BIOS and remove the internal HDD from the boot options, then put the SSD at the very top of the boot options (if your BIOS can't detect the SSD, try putting the USB in the top of boot options). Sadly, I'm not sure if this method would still answer your concern about sharing the EFI system partition (since I haven't necessarily tried this yet).
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On ThinkPads you can choose a "temporary boot device" by hitting F8/F12 at startup so that's not a problem neither
OK, so the ESP is still a thing than...
On Desktop PCs I usually just remove the Windows SSD when installing Linux (and vice versa) but I don't want to open up that laptop...
Yeah i was about to say that probably removing the internal drive of the laptop isn't gonna be a smart choice (voids warranty, etc.)
AFAIK, ESP is a thing because if - for example -, you have to boot the installer of UM from say a USB drive, you have to make sure that the BIOS supports UEFI/EFI. In my HP laptop that used to run Windows 10. I had to direct the BIOS to the Boot EFI of UM just for it to load the installer (and I still have to do it when - for example - I have to reinstall UM).
Don't take me words like I'm a Linux master tho. I'm sure I'm wrong in some parts here and there.
