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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Use work laptop as personal device by dual booting on a separate internal drive? (lemmy.one)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I currently have a Dell laptop that runs Windows for work. I use an external SSD via the Thunderbolt port to boot Linux allowing me to use the laptop as a personal device on a completely separate drive. All I have to do is F12 at boot, then select boot from USB drive.

However, this laptop is only using 1 of the 2 internal M.2 ports. Can I install Linux on a 2nd M.2 drive? I would want the laptop to normally boot Windows without a trace of the second option unless the drive is specified from the BIOS boot options.

Will this cause any issues with Windows? Will I be messing anything up? For the external drive setup, I installed Linux on a different computer, then transferred the SSD to the external drive. Can I do the same for the M.2 SSD – install Linux on my PC, then transfer that drive to the laptop?

Any thoughts or comments are welcome.

Edit: Thank you everyone! This was a great discussion with a lot of great and thoughtful responses. I really appreciate the replies and all the valuable information and opinions given here.

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[–] friend_of_satan 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If the second internal ssd is there when windows boots, it will leave a trace. IMHO booting off the external drive is the best option if you want it to leave no trace on the windows partitions.

Also, it's possible any booted device will leave a trace in the bios or uefi boot logs, which your corporation may have configured to ship to their audit logs or something similar.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for the information. And good point - I will check to see if there's any logs in the BIOS. Is there any way to know if boot logs are being sent? Is that a BIOS setting, or something that would be configured in Windows?

[–] friend_of_satan 2 points 10 months ago

I'm not familiar with windows so I don't know exactly how to tell if the logs are being sent to a central log store. My assumption about how it would work is windows would have a capability that reads the UEFI boot logs and sends them with other windows system logs to a central log store. This feature is almost certainly built into windows. You may be able to open up a log inspection tool of some sort and search them. I'm really just guessing about these details from first principles though.