On 04/02/2016 10:36 PM, David G.Miller wrote:
> Yasha Karant <ykarant@...> writes:
>
>> An alternative approach -- if it will work.  Suppose I purchase a 1
>> Tbyte external USB drive (typically with a NTFS partition//format, but
>> this can be changed).
>> Suppose I install such a drive in the target machine that has MS Win 10
>> on the internal hard drive, and then, during the boot (secure boot
>> disabled, legacy boot enabled),
>> boot from the SL 7.2 install DVD.  Could I do the full install (I am not
>> worried about partitions, etc., yet -- merely for testing purposes) to
>> the USB drive, not touching the internal harddrive,
>> and, after the install, boot the machine from the external USB drive
>> (again, not touching the harddrive).  Is this feasible?  I fully
>> understand that an external USB drive machine will be "slower" than
>> a properly configured SATA internal harddrive machine -- but will this work?
>>
>> Yasha Karant
>>
>> On 04/02/2016 02:28 PM, Chris Schanzle wrote:
>>> On 04/02/2016 01:25 PM, Yasha Karant wrote:
>>>> Other than stating that EL 7 will not work, are there any other
>>>> suggestions?
>>> Best option is to remove the drive and put your own in for testing.
>>>
>>> Alternatively, clone the drive with CloneZilla or if you're more
>>> comfortable, "dd | gzip -1" and muck with it to your hearts
>>> content...if you need to restore it to 'factory condition' just
>>> restore your backup.
>>>
>>> I do this with ANY new purchase...before turning the system on and
>>> booting it up.
>>>
>>
> I did that for a few years with Fedora.  I still have a 400GB USB drive with
> a couple of versions of Fedora on it (I "walked" forward my Fedora installs
> so that I had a stable, previous version install on one set of partitions
> and the latest, bleeding edge on another partition set).  I needed a newer
> kernel than was shipping with SL/CentOS/RHEL at the time.  Just keep track
> of which drive is which when you do the install and change your boot order
> so the USB drive has priority if it's attached.
>
> I tend to use this arrangement with my "work" laptops that come with Windows
> installed by the IT department on the hard drive.  I boot the systems to
> Linux on the external USB and can then escape from Windows when I feel the
> need.
>
> I also found the Linux install on an external drive is even portable between
> hardware platforms so an option is to install to the external drive from so
> other hardware and just boot the problem laptop from the external drive
> after you've confirmed that the installation works.
>
> Cheers,
> Dave
I do not know the rules//customs of this list as to whether or not I 
should snip this.

Your last paragraph presents an option.  I have a 1 Tbyte SL 7.1 system 
on my professional (not consumer
Pavillion) with a "genuine" Intel I7 CPU (not the AMD CPU on the 
possible laptop for my wife).  If I simply got an external
1 Tbyte USB drive (e.g. a commodity Western Digital My Passport Ultra), 
and then, using my laptop that has a 1 Tbyte internal
drive, did a dd from my laptop to the external drive (a dd should copy 
all partitions, including boot) -- would this be bootable on the
target test machine?

If it is, and we elect to keep her machine, could I then, using her 
machine, do a dd from the external USB booted drive to the internal 1 
Tbyte drive of
her machine, producing a bootable Linux internal harddrive, or would 
there be a problem?  My machine does not have a EFI "chunk" on the 
harddrive,
and I have been told that without such a "chunk" -- wasted space -- a 
non EFI image will not boot on an EFI machine even if both Secure Boot 
is disabled
and Legacy Boot is enabled.  If this is the case, the image from my 
machine would not boot.  Any ideas or suggestions?

If the above would produce a booted SL 7.1 machine on my wife's new 
laptop, I presumably could put in the 7.2 install DVD and upgrade to 7.2 
without requiring the use
of a slow nextwork connection (at home, all we have is DSL -- and at my 
wife's university office, that theoretical has a 1 Gbit/sec 802.3 
connection, the actual throughput when
downloading the current 7.2 Live DVDkde ISO image was approximately 1 
Mbit/sec -- 1 percent of the nominal throughput -- mostly because the IT 
central administration fully
controlling network professionals at my institution have certain skill 
and knowledge issues that I shall not address here).

Would the above work or is the lack of an efi "chunk" a "deal breaker"?  
Can I install such an efi chunk on my machine (I have enough unused 
space in various partitions that I could use
gparted, for example, to free up such space -- if I know where the efi 
"chunk" needs to be (next to the MBR? anywhere on a bootable disk?) and 
from where to get an efi "chunk" image.

Yasha Karant