Linux on a portable harddisk drive?
 

I just had a play with Mandrake Move on a CD I got from a magazine cover. I liked it because it looked great and worked well (except it was a bit slow working off the CD drive)

Ive been trying to get away from windows for a while now. My last attempt was with Red-Hat a couple of years back Tried and tried but eventually gave up when i just couldn't keep learning linux AND making a living...
I was wondering if it would be possible to install linux on my portable USB hard drive (40 GB) and boot it from a CD.

That would give me something i could practice on till I can make the move from windows with confidence.

Is this possible? and if so can anyone here help step me through the process of doing it.?
Thanks for reading. Pete

It's possible but not trivial. Check out this article from IBM to get an idea about what's involved:

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwork...nxw02aFireBoot

There are also several posts on this forum discussing this topic.

There are ways to do this to some extent. I haven't used it, but Knoppix has the ability to have a persistent home directory. The system would stiil be loaded off the CD, but you could keep all your user settings, documents and such. Not exactly what you asked for, but much easier.

Thanks for the info kilgoretrout and gd2shoe. I've given it up for the time being . Installed Mandrake 10 on a second (not portable) hard drive so I can practice there. Not my ideal solution but it will do until I learn enough to get where I want . sigh :).

Pete

Or if ur pc is powerful try vmware. In vmware u can try all linux distros if u want.

Or..Get a Hard Drive caddy, and an extra tray..plug in the drive containing the OS you want to use...

FYI: http://store.mandrakesoft.com/produc...roducts_id=119