Can Linux be installed on a SD card and used as it is normally installed on an HDD or SSD?

[Zucc]

I watched a YouTube video about this and installed Linux Mint on my SD card. The installation was successful. The bootloader is installed on the same SD card. But after rebooting, the SD card did not show up in the boot menu.

 

Can Linux be installed on a SD card and used as it is normally installed on an HDD or SSD? If can, suggest me a way to solve this problem.

[Electronics Wizardy]

What system is this? Many systems don't show the sd card to be bootable.

 

A sd card is gonna be pretty slow, so Id use a SSD if possible.

[Zucc]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What system is this? Many systems don't show the sd card to be bootable.

 

A sd card is gonna be pretty slow, so Id use a SSD if possible.

HP Notebook - 15-AY104TU

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Zucc said:

HP Notebook - 15-AY104TU

Probably not possible if it doesn't show in the boot menu then. 

[IAmAndre]

You might want to try installing it on a USB stick. Does the SD card appear in the boot menu when Linux isn't installed?

[Zucc]

2 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

You might want to try installing it on a USB stick. Does the SD card appear in the boot menu when Linux isn't installed?

The boot menu only shows the bootable drivers on my system. I will now try to flash the operating system using Rufus, to confirm whether the SD card is recognized for the boot menu.

[IAmAndre]

Just now, Zucc said:

The boot menu only shows the bootable drivers on my system. I will now try to flash the operating system using Rufus, to confirm whether the SD card is recognized for the boot menu.

Even with nothing installed on it, it should still appear in the boot menu. If it doesn't when it's empty, then it won't whatever you install on it.

[Zucc]

13 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

Even with nothing installed on it, it should still appear in the boot menu. If it doesn't when it's empty, then it won't whatever you install on it.

The SD card did not appear in the boot menu 

[Kilrah]

18 hours ago, IAmAndre said:

Even with nothing installed on it, it should still appear in the boot menu. If it doesn't when it's empty, then it won't whatever you install on it.

That's not correct, UEFI will only list a device in the boot menu if it has a valid system.

 

18 hours ago, Zucc said:

HP Notebook - 15-AY104TU

Try putting the card in an external reader and see if it shows up there.

 

My Dell boots just fine from my Ubuntu SD card in a separate reader, but not with the built-in one (even though there's explicitly a BIOS option for booting from SD, it's enabled but still doesn't work, BIOS bug or something....)

[IAmAndre]

2 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

That's not correct, UEFI will only list a device in the boot menu if it has a valid system.

 

Yes. By "empty" I implied at least properly formatted, which should be the case.

[Kilrah]

An empty formatted card won't show up in a UEFI boot menu. It only appears once there's an actual EFI loader there. If there are multiple then they'll all show. 

Under UEFI it's not tied to the drive anymore but to the loaders present.