Up to you.
Just wondering why you posted?
I was led to believe from post #1 that you wanted to install to the chip, now your saying you don't want to install at all, what was the purpose of this thread?

Whence I read about them cheepO little 32GB make shift Micro SD Cards being used as HDD's and being seen as this type of storage mmcblk0 (for the most part) and the issues they where already causing others, just one. that steered me away from that type of set up, then their is that add on, We'll give you 20x GB of free storage on our 'cloud' .. small print states for one year, so you use it then that year goes by rather fast then its, give us money else we'll delete everything you put on it.

The best I've seen is the laptops that come with an extra slot you can actually get to and plug in an actual ssd card of whatever size then use that as ones boot hdd, and forget about that little 32GB thing.

Linux Mint only requires 5.5-6GB, And it's not likely to be affected by the Windows crowd's reach. These little units typically only have a couple GB of ram, running off a stick uses most of that, Mint is so much nicer off the "twice as fast as USB" emmc/ssd, I recently put it in a VM on an SSD and it's getting used way more than Debian or Ubuntu. MMC-utils can be installed in Mint with two commands, make, sudo make install, no need to remaster Mint.

Also, I just remembered, the Switch 10 had a 64bit capable processor, but a 32bit UEFI interface, I could only run 32bit Windows, but could run 64bit Linux Ubuntu or Mint by adding a file I found in a forum called bootia32 in the EFI/Boot folder of the stick. Apparently, as I found later in another article, it's not hard to create it in Linux systems, just don't remember the particulars. But because the OP said it does not show as a boot device, that points to the need to run that one command after installing mmc-utils, then it likely, like mine, will show up as a boot device.

And I can't see how a stick sticking out the side is convenient for something you want to take travelling. Installing to the emmc is a no-brainer.

Sorry to see Bill_in_PA was PM'd by BW-userx whom thinks everybody is conspiring to hurt him, and as a result, refuses to do what he/she originally wanted to do. Not my problem, no skin off my back.

The use of mmc-utils is well defined in the Jedec standards, there has been many revisions of the standard over time. Anybody can get a hold of the latest standard that covers all past standards, only problem is it will cost $327.00US if I remember correctly. It defines the standards in design and setup of memory chips used in smart phones, U3 smart drives and these emmc chips in little laptops, pads etc.

The folks whom work on, setup or repair smart phone chips use Jtag boxes wired to the printed circuit board, and the software runs the mmc-utils commands, as such, they don't know how to use mmc-utils from command line.
The folks whom setup U3 devices, mostly use Ubuntu Linux and scripts, as such, they don't know hot to use mmc-utils form command line.
Computer manufactures, I don't know how they setup their chips as they don't spill much info on the www.

This is why it was hard to figure out how to use the Linux ported mmc-utils, unless you want to spend the $327.00, you'll know it in depth.

These chips are in devices all around you, if you're that scared of them BW-userx, get rid of your phone, flash drives and ipad etc. etc. etc.

wtf are you taking about?

scared of a chip so get rid of my phone and flash drives and ipad. you sadly mistaken my post. go on install a different OS on your iPad Mr Brains, lets see just how smart you really are. because you for some reason think I've developed an paranoia over sd cards.

emmc chips in little laptops is a ploy to get people to use the cloud so they then can be hoodwinked into having to pay someone to keep their data because that crappy little laptop only came with a crappy little 32GB emmc. that is not being paranoid that is having insight.

You may be right, but then again, maybe not

These units typically have a micro SD slot, you can pump up your storage to fit your needs, no need for "Cloud services"