Re: Install Linux on an external USB disk

Sébastien de Mapias staggered into the Black Sun and said:
I'd like to install Linux on an Acer Aspire 2920, but I don't want to
touch the disk that came with this laptop.

Why not? There's no risk in resizing NTFS partitions now. If you're
paranoid, use a LiveCD to back up everything using partimage.

Do you think that if I -temporarily- remove the original disk to
replace it with the other one

What other one? Did you mean you're going to buy another 2.5" disk?
You can do that, but swapping disks can be painful on some laptops.
Check the procedure before you buy another disk and make sure you can
swap the disks in < 5 minutes using nothing but a screwdriver.

then install Linux (I'm considering CentOS)

CentOS is sort of behind the times wrt lots of things, and though RPM
Dependency Hell is less of a problem than it used to be, it is still
easier to use apt or portage IMHO.

then remove it and re-plug the [first] disk, [then] put my Linux disk
in my external USB box, I will [have] problems [booting] from it?

This depends greatly on how your laptop handles booting from USB disks.
If the machine can't boot from USB, forget it. If it can, worst-case,
when you try to boot from USB, the menu entry that gets installed for
GRUB won't work and you'll be stuck at a GRUB prompt. Also, if you try
this, SELinux may have a fit.

Or should I try to set everything up from the beginning on my external
disk [that's] already in its enclosure, to make sure I won't encounter
config problems?

This is what I'd try first.

When booting from a USB [connection] or from the internal sata
[connection] in my laptop, does it make a difference for the operating
system?

Huh? Explain more fully, please. The BIOS on an x86 decides which disk
is 0x80, which disk is 0x81, etcetera. The bootloader must use BIOS
functions to load the kernel, so drive numbering is important.
Typically, the device that was booted from is 0x80. Once the kernel is
loaded, it uses standard Linux names to refer to devices (/dev/sda is
the first SCSI disk, etcetera.) SATA and USB devices are both seen as
SCSI disks, so no problem there. HTH,

--
He is a rhythmic movement of the penguins, is Tux.
--MegaHAL, trained on random gibberish
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Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
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