Question about external hd

corblimey

I installed Ubuntu to an external drive and it works fine. I have to select the external drive in the boot order when booting up, but after that it's grand (I know I could change it full time, just haven't got around to it yet).

Anyway, my question is, in theory could I plug that ext/hd into a different PC altogether and as long as I can change the boot order on that PC, I should get everything as it stands right now? It shouldn't make any diff that the other PC is a Vista machine, or is not connected to my broadband or anything, I should be able to at least boot into Ubuntu, right?

samhail

it wont matter that the other machine is vista, nor whether it is connected to the internet.

The only worry that i would have would be that when Ubuntu loaded, i assume you have a GUI on it like X (is that still around). it would have loaded the drivers necessary for the hardware on our previous machine, so when you plug it into your other one there may be a mismatch on hardware/drivers.
It should pick it up... but i have no experience.

Im sure someone else would or you could just try it for us
shouldnt break anything.

corblimey

notsamhail wrote: »

The only worry that i would have would be that when Ubuntu loaded, i assume you have a GUI on it like X (is that still around). it would have loaded the drivers necessary for the hardware on our previous machine, so when you plug it into your other one there may be a mismatch on hardware/drivers.

Hmm, I was kinda hoping for the magical ability to just plug this h/d in wherever I go, and hey presto I have Linux at my disposal. From what you're saying, there may be configuration issues? Will I need the Ubuntu liveCD? I guess the idea is suck it and see?

samhail

far from it !
Id love to try it sometime. havnt gotten into this running an OS from anything but a hard drive...

sure just back up your data from your ubuntu installation and plug it in an dsee what happens !

An Fear Aniar

If you like, play around with Slax booted from a USB first. See how that does.

http://www.slax.org/



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stereo_steve

corblimey wrote: »

I installed Ubuntu to an external drive and it works fine. I have to select the external drive in the boot order when booting up, but after that it's grand (I know I could change it full time, just haven't got around to it yet).

Anyway, my question is, in theory could I plug that ext/hd into a different PC altogether and as long as I can change the boot order on that PC, I should get everything as it stands right now? It shouldn't make any diff that the other PC is a Vista machine, or is not connected to my broadband or anything, I should be able to at least boot into Ubuntu, right?

I have ubuntu on a 2.5" disk. I bring it everywhere with me. Very handy in work when I change computers. Works perfect

corblimey

notsamhail wrote: »

sure just back up your data from your ubuntu installation and plug it in an dsee what happens !

Just as a matter of interest, what exactly would I need to back up? The entire /home folder? /etc?

An Fear Aniar

corblimey wrote: »

Just as a matter of interest, what exactly would I need to back up? The entire /home folder? /etc?

If it's a relatively new installation there's not much you would need to back-up apart from documents, videos, pr0n etc.

But say you had an installation for a while and you had all your different config settings for your mailbox, your desktop themes, your media player etc... All those config files are stored on /home.

E.G. I upgraded to Ibex and when I installed Thunderbird again, all I had to do was open it and all my emails were there, as well as POP and SMTP connections. So it was running the same system but with a new engine underneath.


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samhail

couldnt have answered it better (or probably as good ) as an fear aniar

generalmiaow

I can confirm this works even on an IDE hard disk, it has to do with how linux loads drivers; as long as you are using an official kernel and no fancy nvidia graphics it has as much chance of working as it would had you installed it there.

I tried doing this with an XP installation once. Never got to the desktop.

ldr

this is very interesting.
i had ubuntu on the laptop and i was loving until i went to use them special keys on the keyboard and went to plug the laptop to the tv woundn`t transfer the picture to the tv, so i took it off.
but would this mean i could run ubuntu from a 4gb memory card?