Welcome • User Guide
ToS • Privacy • Canary
Donate • Bugs • License

©2024 Poal.co

762

I placed a spare ssd into my device and would like to put a linux distro on it so I can learn it and get completely away from windows.

What distro would you recommend for this?
Any particular favorite websites or vids useful for a linux newb? Do I need a usb stick or can I directly install to the ssd? Do I have to go into the windows bios? What settings would I change there if needed? The ssd is labeled, formatted but not partitioned. Any recommendations would be appreciated. TYIA

I placed a spare ssd into my device and would like to put a linux distro on it so I can learn it and get completely away from windows. What distro would you recommend for this? Any particular favorite websites or vids useful for a linux newb? Do I need a usb stick or can I directly install to the ssd? Do I have to go into the windows bios? What settings would I change there if needed? The ssd is labeled, formatted but not partitioned. Any recommendations would be appreciated. TYIA

(post is archived)

You are currently inside a comment thread.
Click here to see all the comments (10).
[–] [deleted] • 2 pts

I did this myself. I have a M2 Drive with Windows 11, and a SATA SSD with Ubuntu installed. I just press my F11 key at startup (your device may vary), and select either Windows Boot Manager or the Ubuntu Drive for which one I want to boot. That way I avoid any complications from setting up dual-boot on the same drive. In the BIOS you can set which drive is the default boot drive, of course, so that whichever you want to be your primary OS, you don't have to press anything for Just use the F11 Boot Device when you want to boot the other.

So my my case, the Ubuntu install is the default boot device in the BIOS, and I press F11 and select Windows Boot Manager when I want to boot Windows 11.

If you want to assure there's no install complications, remove the other drive when doing the install. In other words, only have one drive in at a time when doing the initial install of each OS. That way no boot files get put on the other drive, etc.