I tried getting Linux on my last computer, and completely screwed it up. I have a very nice new laptop now which I don't want to try to risk redownloading Ubuntu on. It has a 128GB SSD which Windows 10 is installed on (and I would like to keep) and a 1TB Hard Drive. I was wondering if I should buy an external hard drive, and put Ubuntu as it's sole OS. Then anytime I need Linux I can just boot from that. Is that possible and does it bring any risk to my files on my computers current SSD and Hard Drive? I will not be needing any of my current files when I am using Linux, I can redownload the things I need to the external drive. I need Linux for some programming classes I am taking so I can easily re-install the things I need. Any help is very appreciated, thank you for your time.
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You sound like a good candidate for virtualizing. You can use virtualbox and just virtualize ubuntu for the occasional use. – May 31 '16 at 19:55
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With UEFI, external drives boot differently. They only boot from /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi. Both Windows and Ubuntu use that file name(different actual file) to boot installers. And full install of grub only installs to ESP on sda. You need to have an ESP on sdb and copy /EFI/ubuntu from sda's ESP to sdb's ESP. Then copy again to /EFI/Boot and rename shimx64.efi to bootx64.efi. Then you an boot from external. UEFI/gpt partitioning in Advance: http://askubuntu.com/questions/743095/how-to-prepare-a-disk-on-an-efi-based-pc-for-ubuntu – oldfred May 31 '16 at 20:02
1 Answers
To run Ubuntu from a USB port, be it a Flash Drive or an External HDD/SSD you first need to download Ubuntu in your preferred flavour and write the ISO to the drive. In Windows there are many tools to convert ISO to USB bootable, but the best one is Rufus. The official guide including links to Ubuntu is here: How to create a bootable USB stick on Windows.
Regarding safety and the access of your files between operating systems. You should be careful about transferring from Ubuntu to Windows without a virus/malware check, as Linux distros often don't have virus checking software for numerous reasons, such as how the OS is sectioned and isolated into built for purpose 'jails'. A transfer could potentially be a risk for software being let loose on Windows without any fail safe.
I do recommend getting a recovery drive for Windows 10, see official instructions here: Creating a recovery drive. Hence, if you do decide to go for dual boot, which is simply making sure you install in the correct boot mode: UEFI or Legacy and having a separate, big enough partition in a EXT format.
To be sure, the quickest way to switch between OS's is via virtual media drives. I recommend VM Player and another option with more options in free mode is VBox. You can create your own 'jail' for the OS as well by limiting copy/paste and shared folders to your root OS.
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