Use hdd’s for more then 1 pc

[Walt]

Hi everyone,

Is it possible to put an os on a HDD and put the HDD in an enclosure to use it a OS/startup disk on more then 1 pc?

I’m asking this because the pc’s on school only have 100Mb data for every student and you can’t install programs on it. 

(I understand why but it’s annoying)

 

I’m thinking about putting Ubuntu onto it and plug it into a pc and then use the bios to choose a startup disk.

Will this work when I change from pc’s?

 

Thanks!

[ProjectBox153]

While yes it would work, you'd have to install drivers for each machine, and in my experience moving Windows or another OS from one machine to another completely identical machine, drivers still get messed up. I wouldn't recommend using something like that to bypass school restrictions. I'd just bring a laptop, if it's allowed. 

[Walt]

3 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

While yes it would work, you'd have to install drivers for each machine, and in my experience moving Windows or another OS from one machine to another completely identical machine, drivers still get messed up. I wouldn't recommend using something like that to bypass school restrictions. I'd just bring a laptop, if it's allowed. 

Thanks for the information!

I asked the ICT-guy and he said that if it worked I was allowed to do it

 

[ProjectBox153]

2 minutes ago, Walt said:

Thanks for the information!

I asked the ICT-guy and he said that if it worked I was allowed to do it

Really? Most places would have been mad for you having that idea. I'd suggest putting Windows 10 on a hard drive instead of Ubuntu. 

[Ja50n]

It would be relatively easy to put a bootable Ubuntu distro onto something like a 32GB USB stick to bring around with you, and most computers these days should be able to boot from it, though some might lock you out with Secure Boot. What specific applications are you wanting to use?

[LogicalDrm]

You can do it with various Linux distros. I have Slackware (or whatever its called) on one stick and plans to put ElementaryOS on another. Just keep in mind that USB connection will bottlenecking. So if you can, use USB3.

[KenjiUmino]

i am assuming that these school machines have windows installed. 

 

what i would use in such case is a usb stick prepped with the portableapps.com launcher and the apps you'd want to use. 

 

does not need elevated user access and you don't have to fiddle with boot order and stuff

[ProjectBox153]

4 minutes ago, KenjiUmino said:

does not need elevated user access and you don't have to fiddle with boot order and stuff

With the portable programs, some do require elevated access, and as far as the bootable USB goes, computers have a one time boot menu so you don't have to change BIOS settings. 

[KenjiUmino]

6 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

With the portable programs, some do require elevated access, and as far as the bootable USB goes, computers have a one time boot menu so you don't have to change BIOS settings. 

true, but one benefit of NOT bringing your own OS would be that you could use the same usb stick on different computers and not have to worry about drivers from one computer making the OS stop working for another computer.

 

and i only found a hand full of programs on portableapps that actually require elevation. most of them don't

[Walt]

1 hour ago, KenjiUmino said:

true, but one benefit of NOT bringing your own OS would be that you could use the same usb stick on different computers and not have to worry about drivers from one computer making the OS stop working for another computer.

 

and i only found a hand full of programs on portableapps that actually require elevation. most of them don't

Could you explain what kind of programs require elevation? Or is it (a bit) random?

[KenjiUmino]

1 minute ago, Walt said:

Could you explain what kind of programs require elevation? Or is it (a bit) random?

some hardware monitoring tools like CrystalDiskInfo need it. 

libreoffice, browsers and the "usual suspects" do not require elevation.

 

i guess the monitoring tools need elevation to access hardware data (thermal sensors, SMART and stuff)

but apart from this use case, none of these programs should make any permanent changes to the system thus not need elevation at all because nothing is getting installed or changed. 

[Donut417]

On 10/20/2017 at 1:01 PM, Walt said:

Hi everyone,

Is it possible to put an os on a HDD and put the HDD in an enclosure to use it a OS/startup disk on more then 1 pc?

I’m asking this because the pc’s on school only have 100Mb data for every student and you can’t install programs on it. 

(I understand why but it’s annoying)

 

I’m thinking about putting Ubuntu onto it and plug it into a pc and then use the bios to choose a startup disk.

Will this work when I change from pc’s?

 

Thanks!

Kinda yeah. Back in the days of community college. I had a Windows Server 2003 course. We had removable drives, they were the ones you slid in the 5.25 bay and had the keys to lock them in. All the machines in the room were the same. So, no issues with activation and such. So its possible to do this, easy if all the machines use the same hardware.