Linux on a external HD

[Capn Chord]

I hope I'm asking this in the right place. I've not used linux before, but i've been doing a lot of reading and am thinking about giving it a try. I'm just curious if it would be possible to install it to an external Hard Drive and then take that drive with me to say... work. Then hook up to my work pc and be able to use it. This may be a silly question, but just something i was curious about.

Capn

[Colonel Sanders]

I think the biggest problems would be getting Linux to detect a USB hard-drive, and then getting the PC to boot of the USB hard-drive.

1) Search google a bit to see if you need any additional drivers for a USB hard-drive, and how to make them work.

2)During install(I recomend Manrake Linux) when it finds the hard-drive and after it installs all the packages you want, Mandrake will ask where to put LILO(Linux Loader), choices are master boot record, first sector of the root partition, and somewhere else(I think). Since you probbably won't be able to boot directly off of an external hard-drive(because of the BIOS...) I'd put LILOon the first section of the root partition.

3) I think this should be automatic, make a boot floppy.

Now to boot Linux, make sure the PC can boot off a floppy, make sure all is connected, and see what happens.

Good luck!

L J