Laptop from my work has WIN 7 Enterprise, but I have no admin rights on it and under no circumstances I would change partitions. However it does boot from USB. As I want to use Linux on a regular basis while at home, and I need it to be fast and reliable (also on Win 7 side - so Windows won't crash), could you please tell me:
how to make a frugal installation in a Win 7 folder with booting from USB stick .
I am aware that one can install full Linux on a USB, but it wears out USB memory and probably is not that fast as system operating on a HDD. I've imagined that only core system components and HDD mounting loads from USB stick, but the rest functions on HDD under Win 7. Is it possible with any distro?
Installing to the USB won't really "wear it out".
If you have no admin rights you'll need to boot from a livecd or the like to begin the process. If your laptop has no cdrom you'll need an external one.
Unless you are prepared to add a Linux partition to your hard drive you cannot do what you have proposed.
That being a "Laptop from my work" and you "have no admin rights on it", I'd suspect it wise to talk to the IT dept to get a common understanding of what is OK and what is not.
@fpmurphy: Too bad, but thanks for decisive, clear answer.
---------- Post updated at 12:19 AM ---------- Previous update was at 12:08 AM ----------
@Corona688: Please notice that I can boot from USB. And I already managed to run Live version of Linux Mint. But I'd like to have a regular system running, changing current Win OS as least as possible.
What do you mean that USB doesn't wear out? Frequent writing to flash like OS's do wears it out, doesn't it?
---------- Post updated at 12:24 AM ---------- Previous update was at 12:19 AM ----------
@RudiC: Well, I don't live in Germany, so I don't have to consult everything with the authorities ;). As you can figure out I want to use my laptop while interfering with its current state as least as possible.
You should be able to run portable versions of virtual machine software (like qemu) with no admin rights on your windows 7 install, under the condition you can run executables.
This is what i found online, looks reasonable and doable, i haven't tried it myself.
Hope that helps.
Regards
Peasant.
1 Like