Boot my Ubuntu external drive on every computer

Question

I have a problem, I installed Kubuntu on my 4TB external drive, and used it on my computer. My goal was to be able to boot it on every computer. The only computer I had at the time was a macbook and when I was starting grub an error message appeared, so I thought it was somehow related to the fact that it is an Apple product. But when I got back home, I tried the external drive on other computers, none of them worked and they all showed the same error message. I searched a solution with no success. The only thing I've found is something about video drivers. And, indeed, I had to install Nvidia's drivers in order for my computer to have a correct resolution, which could explain why it only boots on this computer. I haven't tried to change the driver and boot on another computer yet, but it seems to me the most obvious reason. All that brings me to my questions:

Is there an universal video driver that could work with all GPU (Including the GTX1060 I have in the initial computer)?

Is there a way to change the driver depending on the computer we are booting on?

Is there another problem to you?

Or maybe another way to solve my issue?

Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

In my experience, you cannot start a Mac from the external built on PC hardware. However, you can generally launch the portable drive with PCs that have similar hardware. Mac is not similar enough in my experience.

Also, external set up on a Bios system will fail to start on a UEFI system. And vice versa.

Within those limits, this can work. I have done this! install the OS on the external, and make sure you install all of the video driver packages you have available. Also may need ether net drivers. If your system does boot on new systems, it is possible that X11 will find drivers and use them. If you do not create/fiddle with xorg.conf, that is what is supposed to happen.

You say you need Nvidia on one machine. OK! Install it, make it run. The impact of that is to create a file /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Tha file is now 'in the way' when you go to another computer. You need to move it, either before powering down or when you start again. You could log out, then use Alt-Ctl-F1, move the xorg.conf file somewhere else, then shutdown.

When you go to a pc that does not have Nvidia, system might start but GUI might fail to show anything in xorg.conf file is there. Don't panic. There is always a virtual terminal! Alt-Ctl-F1 will give traditional login. It does not need gui. Log in, use that terminal to move the xorg.conf file out of the way. To get a quick look at situation, you can run X11 in old fashioned way. Then you can test display by typing

startx

If that shows, then it is probably a solved problem. I would Log out of the X11 session, then restart system or force a restart of X11 only and the display manager.

From the VT, I restart with

sudo /sbin/shutdown -r now

Theoretically, restart not required. Possible instead restart just the video greeter piece. I did not do this in a while, but probably you have either Gnome Display Manager or Light Display Manager. GDM gives a script named "gdm-restart". Seems sure to me LDM must have way to do thus too. But it is probably easier to restart. I will do some checking on restarting DM.

Answer 2

I think you are affected by one of the problems that limits the portability of installed Ubuntu systems, and you have identified the problem correctly.

In order to keep such a system portable, you should avoid proprietary drivers (typically nvidia graphics drivers or drivers for some wifi chips). As long as you stay with the free linux drivers, for example nouveau for nvidia graphics chips, it will be portable.

Nouveau and the other free graphics drivers will be selected automatically by the linux system to match the detected hardware, and this works in many computers (I would say the vast majority of computers). But particularly new and very old computers, and high-end graphics chips/cards are problematic. After some time the open linux society catches up and provides free drivers.

But there is a problem: some computers will not work without a proprietary driver - and then you have to modify the system between computers, so the portability is limited.

You can uninstall the proprietary driver - then the free drivers start to work automatically. And you can install another proprietary driver when necessary. It is not convenient - but compared to Windows, Ubuntu is much more portable.

An alternative is to install a persistent live system in the external drive. Such a system is more portable than an installed system, but there are other drawbacks. So you can do some tests and select the kind of system that works best for you. See this link and links from it,

Boot Ubuntu from external drive.

Try Ubuntu (Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, ...) before installing it