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I’m just asking this question. It may have been asked before but I’m asking this time to obtain further details. If I installed my Ubuntu from a laptop (Asus) to an external SSD, will I be able to boot this external SSD on other laptops and desktops alike?

If I had ticked the box ‘Install third-party software for graphics and Wi-Fi hardware and additional media formats’ during installation, will this create complications? Right now, the Ubuntu external SSD I have has been installed from my laptop (Asus) which has intel graphics drivers and that Ubuntu always came with those as far as I’m aware of.

I’m also aware that I’ll be booting on computers with different hardware in which I hear Ubuntu will be compatible with 99% of the time unless I’m wrong. In case you ask, no I won’t be installing proprietary graphic drivers for every computer I boot Ubuntu from just to keep the compatibility unless it’s really safe.

Please ask if you need further details.

Toby
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  • Do you want UEFI or BIOS? BIOS install works. UEFI is a bit more difficult as Ubiquity only installs grub to first (usually internal drive). You have to partition in advance to include an ESP on external drive. And either copy all /EFI/Boot & /EFI/ubuntu to ESP on external or reinstall grub so on external External drives only boot from /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi in ESP. And full install of copy has shim as bootx64.efi, but needs more files in /EFI/ubuntu folder. Posted work around to manually unmount & mount correct ESP during install https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1396379 – oldfred Dec 15 '19 at 21:42
  • My install already has the ESP partition. The live Ubuntu boot I used to install to my SSD is UEFI-based. My SSD is GPT. Is this good enough for me? Or am I missing something else? To answer your question, I’m going with UEFI. – Toby Dec 15 '19 at 21:50
  • Default install will not put files into ESP on external. You just have to do a work around or when booted, reinstall grub and specify correct ESP, & edit fstab with correct ESP's UUID. – oldfred Dec 15 '19 at 22:41
  • Are you talking about that even if I manually created an ESP Partition, it still wouldn’t work?

    Also, I needed to mention I created an EFI partition in order to have Ubuntu install its boot loader on my SSD instead of my internal SSD (from my Asus laptop) just so my Ubuntu will still boot. I also had to temporarily disable the boot and esp flag in my laptop’s internal SSD to hide during installation. It was all thanks to a certain askubuntu question answered.

     – Toby Dec 15 '19 at 23:41
  • See bug report above. That is one work around in bug report. But I use internal ESP to boot install media, so it does not work for me. – oldfred Dec 16 '19 at 00:18

3 Answers3

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No you can not use the same Ubuntu thumb drive to boot a computer with Arm processors, or one that does not meet hardware spec's, or is 32bit. The drive needs to be made BIOS/UEFI compatible to boot both BIOS and UEFI computers. This is not too hard to do:

Ubuntu on a USB stick - boot in both BIOS and UEFI modes

This works with SSD also.

The last time I checked Nvidia proprietary graphic drivers did not interfere when booting a computer without a Nvidia graphics card.

C.S.Cameron
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  • I see, will it interfere if the computer had AMD graphics card instead? – Toby Dec 17 '19 at 23:09
  • I have not tried with AMD card, but no problem with Intel graphics. I think the Nvidia driver only loads if there is a Nvidia card. – C.S.Cameron Dec 18 '19 at 03:33
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The standard ubuntu kernel will deal with the same broad AMD64 hardware as your first device. The boot loader is the other part of the puzzle, and it is actually the hard part to get right. You are right to prefer a real installation, not a 'persistent USB' installation.

I am going to assume that you have EFI on everything (all computers you want to boot), which is a good bet for hardware less than 8 years old or so.

I do what you are asking, and it works.

A couple of tips: a) Many USB sticks promise fast performance, but mostly that is rubbish when it comes to the workload of an OS. However, the Samsung USB C bars are quite good, I have a few test distributions installed on these and the performance is quite good. I doubt they will have a long and happy lifetime under load, but for mucking around and exploring they are good. I mention this is a cheap alternative to using a real SSD

boot-loader setup

b) For a fully self-contained experience, you want the boot loader on the USB device, not just the OS. There is unfortunately a bug in the ubuntu installer which ignores your request for it to do this, but the workaround is not too bad. See my 'tutorial' answer: https://askubuntu.com/a/1056079/152287

Tim Richardson
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  • Oh hey it’s you. Just wanted to let you know that your answer is what allowed me to install the bootloader on my external SSD while temporarily disabling the boot and esp flag of another internal hard drive in my laptop a couple days ago before posting this question. I just wanted to say thanks. When you say EFI on everything, what did you mean by that? You mean I needed more than just the EFI Partition which has the boot and esp flag instructed from your answer to my external SSD? – Toby Dec 16 '19 at 05:23
  • By "EFI on everything" I mean that every machine you want to use your bootable SSD on is using EFI boot. – Tim Richardson Dec 16 '19 at 06:40
  • Alright, so as long as the boot loader exists in my external SSD, it’ll work on any UEFi-based computers right? I’ll just have to make sure to not install any proprietary graphic drivers for Nvidia and AMD. – Toby Dec 17 '19 at 23:07
  • I have a question about the boot loader. During installation, when it asks where I want the boot loader, I have an option of installing to a disk or partition. Is there a difference in installing boot loader on the external SSD drive(sdb) or the EFI partition(sdb1) I created? Right now, mine is installed to the external SSD(sdb) itself. That’s the part I had a hard time discerning from your instructions. Please let me know. – Toby Dec 18 '19 at 22:25
  • I wouldn't worry about graphic drivers, if the hardware doesn't need it, the driver won't be loaded – Tim Richardson Dec 18 '19 at 22:38
  • Toby, if you follow my instructions carefully you will note when I refer to a drive and when I refer to a partition on the drive e.g. sdb vs sdb1 – Tim Richardson Dec 18 '19 at 22:41
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A regular ubuntu intall to an external hard drive will not make the drive bootable. If the SSD is set up to be bootable, it should work. But you will still need to interrupt the BIOS boot process to tell your computer which drive you want to boot too. I'm assuming that you are using a USB SATA Adapter Cable. You can probably run a bootable flash drive installation to the external USB hard drive. You can also choose the install option to make a "persistent" bootable USB drive. But there are limitations to the bootable external drives. You'd learn if it's what you want to do by making a bootable thumb drive for experimentation. There are some great tutorials in Ask Ubuntu for making bootable flash drives..

Carl Ernest
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  • I’m not interested in making a bootable thumb drive since it lacks the data capacity of a hard drive or SSD. And no, I’m connecting the SSD through the enclosure at least through USB-C to USB A. How will a regular ubuntu install to an external hard drive not make it bootable? And what do you mean that if the SSD is set up to be bootable, it should work? Am I missing anything in regards with the SSD? – Toby Dec 15 '19 at 20:24
  • And why was it thumbs down anyway? Is there a good reason? I have tried looking through answers similar to mine and that they still haven’t answered my questions. – Toby Dec 15 '19 at 20:31
  • If the install has the boot flag on, it should work on most computers(intel or AMD). Ubuntu usually has drivers for both. Should only have to set a computer to boot first from USB. – crip659 Dec 15 '19 at 21:15
  • I recall creating the EFI partition during my Ubuntu installation. I used gparted to put a tick on both boot and esp box on that partition. I created an EFI partition anyway due to a bug that doesn’t allow you to use an external SSD as a bootloader. It was through a certain askubuntu that lead me to do that. Based on this, this will work on most computers like you said right? – Toby Dec 15 '19 at 21:44
  • It should work on most, but there will be some that will required bios updates and googling for bios settings to make them boot/work. EFI probably won't work on old bios only machines. – crip659 Dec 15 '19 at 22:09