Hello all, slow starter here

[a mere chimp]

Hi and thanks for having me on your forum.
I've spent enough time and money on Windows and I look forward to migrating away from all that.
I'd love to get up and running with Mint but it's not going well. I have a desktop running Windows 11. I wanted to install Mint just on a bootable flash drive to get the hang of using Linux, but that didn't work. (Although I got a bootable installer thumb drive for my effort.) So I got an external ssd with USB, thinking that could be my Mint drive, but that didn't work either.
I'm not ready to install it on my PC's internal drive; I don't want to risk messing that up.
I'll be looking around and asking a noob's questions.
Thanks again.

[grndplane]

Try following the instructions here> viewtopic.php?t=404838
Creating a bootable usb with Windows can be tricky. Good luck.

[ironbark]

I'm not ready to install it on my PC's internal drive; I don't want to risk messing that up.

There lies your problem. You want to move away from Windows but you're not ready to let go of Microsoft's apron strings. I made the break from Windows several years ago and have never regretted it. I made the decision to free myself once and for all from Windows by simply formatting the drive to wipe it out of my life and installed Linux Mint in it's place as the only O/S on my desktop pc. It was a clean break after saving my personal data to a spare drive. There was of course a period of learning and getting used to Linux but the more I got into it, the more I liked it and realised just how good it is. At 76 years of age, learning new tricks doesn't come easy for me, but I persevered and am so glad I did. The good feeling you get when you finally free yourself from the clutches of Microsoft, and cast off your Windows mindset, is well worth the effort. If I can do it at my age, anybody can.

If you can't let go of Windows as I did I suggest you clone it onto an old pc and and then install Linux Mint on your current pc in it's place. In my opinion Linux Mint is at it's best as a stand alone O/S. Dual boot or VM setups just makes everything more complicated. My Linux Mint is super fast, super reliable, and does everything I want it to do without fuss.

[Human_63]

The nice thing about transitioning from Windows to Linux Mint is the interface is about 85 percent the same, just that Mint works better. When I decided to upgrade my old HP laptop from Win 10 last fall, I was, like you, not quite ready to completely let go of Windows, so I set that machine up as a dual-boot. Installation went fine and I was to boot into Mint exactly once before triggering Microsoft's defense mechanisms against what it apparently considers invasive software. Microsoft made 'repairs' to my hard disk to remove the option to boot into Mint. To repair their alleged repair and restore the boot options screen, I had to go into BIOS and first disable "Secure Boot", then adjust the boot order so that Linux Mint is first on the list. Now, it will automatically boot into Linux Mint without any further intervention on my part. Booting into Windows requires selecting it on the boot options screen before it times out and boots into Mint. The funny thing is that since I fixed the dual boot option on that laptop, I have not even once considered booting into Windows, and I seldom even think about what operating system I'm using.

The only other (very minor) adjustment for me was not having Microsoft Office. I call this very minor because LibreOffice is my preferred office suite for my personal projects; I just need Microsoft Office for my job. Fortunately LibreOffice can do most of what I need for work, and colleagues don't even know I'm not using Microsoft. On the rare occasions that I actually need Word or Excel, the Web apps suffice nicely. Most days, it's just computing as usual, just without Microsoft's inherent and intrusive hassles. The bottom line, at least for me, was that the conversion process was pretty painless. Don't be afraid to go there.

[rickNS]

So I got an external ssd with USB, thinking that could be my Mint drive, but that didn't work either.
I'm not ready to install it on my PC's internal drive; I don't want to risk messing that up.

Welcome to Mint forums.

I do not blame you for not wanting to "mess up your PC", you need it.
I always say if you only have one it is not for experimentation, that is why I now have more than one, plus Virtualbox is a GREAT thing for trying new things on, especially when just booting a fresh iso, do what ever you want, and when you reboot, your back to square one.
Anyway,

This is the tutorial you're looking for, here,
viewtopic.php?t=287353

[spamegg]

You can use Mint in Virtualbox under Windows for a few months to learn about it. I used it like that for 1 year before removing Windows. Slow is the way to win!

Even better, if you can afford, get a separate PC, does not have to be expensive, just something with 8 GB RAM for comfortable use, and put Mint on that.

[kc1di]

The Virtual box route it one way and it works without bothering your main install.
You can also use live usb but Unless it persistent it will not save any changes that you make and they will be lost on reboot.
Here are some common Things that can prevent Mint from boot on a machine.
1. Secure boot needs to be turned off.
2. You have an Nvidia Graphics card - See Here: https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_virginia.php (Scroll down the the section for Solving freezes during the boot sequence.)
3. Burning downloaded ISO file to USB with Rufus, it has been problematic lately I recommend you download Etcher and use that tool.
Found here: https://etcher.balena.io
There are other reasons but those seem to be the main ones. Good luck and enjoy the Journey.
When you have time you may want to start learning Linux at this web site also [url][https://linuxjourney.com/url][

[sylvain1_]

If you want to use virtualbox but do not know how, you can watch how this is done at https://youtu.be/qLPFSwysD5I.

Note that the video is for an older version of Linux Mint. Also note that your computer performance will also be worse than actually installing the operating system, since you are essentially running an operating system within an operating system when you use virtualbox. This will result in your computer consuming more system resources than it otherwise would when running Linux Mint.

[deepakdeshp]

Welcome to the forum

[NM64]

I wanted to install Mint just on a bootable flash drive to get the hang of using Linux, but that didn't work.

This is in fact something that can be done, but the trick is that you need to have your source Mint ISO located on a different drive than the one you want to install to. You said you bought a USB SSD, so that will work.


The process is actually quite simple:

1. Put the Linux Mint ISO onto the non-SSD USB drive (I recommend Ventoy for easy copy & paste of multiple ISOs, making it even easier to try out different ones)

2. Shut down your PC.
OPTIONAL: unplug or disconnect your internal Windows hard drive／SSD.

3. Boot from your non-SSD USB drive and, once you reach the desktop, plug in your USB SSD.

4. Launch the "Install Linux Mint" and, when it gets to the step of the location of where it should be installed to, select your USB SSD. If you unplugged your internal Windows hard drive／SSD, then the Mint installer should automatically have selected your USB SSD.

5. Let the installation process finish. Once done, all you have to do is boot from your USB SSD and everything should "just work" (minus the niggles that Nvidia graphics can result in on Linux, hence why AMD or Intel graphics tend to be recommended).


And because your Mint installation is on a removable USB drive, it quite independent of the rest of your system with extremely minimal worry about Windows "messing things up" as it were, making me confused what others are saying about recommending against this method—I mean, it may be unconventional, but it's not like it doesn't work (I once had Mint accidentally install itself onto a slow USB 2.0 drive in fact when I wasn't paying close attention ).


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I feel like the goal of OP was missed by most (all?) within this thread.

As someone much more comfortable with hardware than software, I've totally had different OSes installed on different internal SATA SSDs that I swap out on the same single computer for various diagnostics, testing, data backup reasons in a manner similar to floppy boot disks or video game cartridges (fun fact: did you know you can boot from eSATA on Intel chipsets as if they were internal SATA? But even on my personal PC I have SATA cables running outside of the case and my SSD plugged in externally for easy swapping which is something that obviously works regardless of AMD or Intel).

Heck, as long as one doesn't have Nvidia graphics, you can even move a single disk with Linux Mint installed on it between multiple different PCs regardless of AMD or Intel (being mindful of the differences with booting EFI and legacy BIOS).

Oh and, when it comes to USB SSDs, I tend to much more strongly prefer an internal SSD paired with a USB adapter for a multitude of reasons, such as retaining the ability to use PCIe／NVMe, SATA, and/or eSATA (keeping in mind that AMD chipsets cannot boot from eSATA); it's important to note however that there's some difference between how Mint boots a non-live OS installation so, if you installed via SATA, you can't boot from it if plugged into a USB adapter (and the same is true for the opposite: installing a non-live OS onto USB and then removing it from a USB adapter and trying to boot from SATA won't work).