Any Linux solution for a laptop with a broken had drive?

[Uji Ninja]

Hi,

one old laptop I was using just had a hard drive failure.

I don't really want to bother (trying to) open the computer and see if I can change the drive.

 

I know the laptop is still working since it can still boot Batocera from a SD card.

 

What Linux distro, if any, would you recommend for boot & use from an external USB hard drive, USB key or SD card?

 

By the way, the laptop comes with a dual core i3, 8GB of ram and a touchscreen (said screen being the main reason I don't want to get rid of it yet) and is mainly used for education, YouTube and some games with my daughter.

 

Thanks

[Kilrah]

Anything basically.

 

I regularly use Ubuntu from SD/USB.

[Sauron]

There's no distribution that is specifically better for booting from a pendrive. Try keeping startup services at a minimum to get better performance as pendrives tend to slow down significantly under heavy use (i.e. loading a bunch of services at the same time).

[Helpful Tech Witch]

23 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Anything basically.

 

I regularly use Ubuntu from SD/USB.

I've found SD to be painfully slow in xubuntu, which is supposed to be pretty light. Was i slow for you too?

[Kilrah]

A tad slow but perfectly usable

That's on a fast UHS-I U3, 90MB/s writes microSD and good USB 3.0 reader.

[Giganthrax]

I tried using Slax this way, but it was a pile of crap. 

 

Try Xubuntu or Lubuntu. 

 

Also, replacing your laptop HDD with a new one or a cheap SSD is easy. It's usually just a few screws you have to move. 

[TorC]

I'd put Ventoy on a good USB stick and after installing it try antiX.  With 8GB RAM, it should scream off of a USB3 flash drive and give the functionality desired.

Then, you could put other distro ISOs on it and compare.

There's another thread in here about how to do that.

 

Only a touchscreen or do you have a USB kewyboard, too. ?  Choose distro accordingly, but give Ventoy a try -- you should like it

[dragonfly43]

EasyOS.