Putting Linux On A Usb Hardrive


mattmagoo

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I might be buying an external USB hardrive (80gb) for my laptop (only 40gb) and was wondering if i could get linux onto it and boot into linux when the drive is plugged in

any help would be muc appreciated
 
You could check by looking in your BIOS boot settings, if USB is in there, then it's possible.
 
If your laptop bios supports booting off USB Mass Storage devices then yes it will work. Otherwise nah ;)
 
For fun, I'd go for linux on a pendrive. I run a gentoo from mine, which I update every so often, in case my computer goes down. For ease of use slax has a funky package for roll your own, although I've never used it.

Although in the current climate, and with the price of hardrives. I would suggest swapping out the 40GB hard-drive for the best-price-per-GB hard drive, and just buy an external adapter. The just partition however you like. Seriously its a better option, newer hardrives are faster!! even if you bought your laptop only weeks ago.

ie remove 40GB from your machine but new big disk in machine!
 
Firewire is better, better connector, faster. There just is a lot more USB2 about, so will work in more places, and probably will be a standard for longer ,your more likely to get it cheaper, powered hubs etc etc.

Firewire better technology, USB2 better for well everything else.
 
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