Re: question about installing debian or some linux system on an external hard drive
Semih Ozlem wrote:
> Is it possible and sensible to install debian or a linux system to an
> external hard drive connected to a system via the usb port, while keeping
> the current hard drive on the machine unchanged?
As a temporary measure, this is reasonable. USB-connected drives
tend to be much less reliable than internal drives (SATA or
NVMe).
Your computer will need to support booting from that drive.
Almost all computers do support booting from USB disks.
> Where does one install grub2 and is grub2 to be installed before or after
> the installation of the auxiliary system on the external hard drive?
grub2 will generally be installed by the operating system
installer during the installation process. In this case you
would want grub2 installed on the MBR (master boot record) of
the external disk, and use the computer's BIOS or EFI to select
that disk at power-on time.
> What are the various options for disk partitioning and if one intends to
> use docker as well would this change disk partitioning in particular
> logical volume management?
Disks generally use either the MSDOS partition table or a GPT
partition table. The number and layout of partitions is a very
complex subject, but if you don't know what you are doing, it is
reasonable to have a single-drive system have:
EFI (if needed)
swap
root
as a simplest case, or
EFI
swap
root
home
(which preserves home in the case of reinstalls)
Docker does not really affect this.
Can you tell us more about the hardware and what you're planning
to do with it?
-dsr-
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