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this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2026
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Linux Questions
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I'm not sure that I follow the rationale. If this is your only active machine, what is the issue with having to shut down and boot into an installer to install Linux?
Is your goal to overwrite your existing OS with Linux, or to dual boot?
No, my goal is to set up a portable hard drive to use as an external system (to eg.: connect to machines to repair/diagnose them) without having to spend the 2+ hours of install and configure off my one working machine ATM.
Ah, okay. Then yes, as others have mentioned, it sounds like you want a portable linux install.
I keep around install USBs of both Arch Linux and Mint, as both boot into a live version of the distro, and I can either open a terminal to debug things, or arch-chroot into my arch install if I broke my bootloader or something.