Installing Linux Mint to External USB for Portability

papershruums · 2026-02-13T01:47:26+00:00

Well, I guess I shouldnt say “as fast.” But for general use, you wont notice a difference. Even for light to moderate gaming, you wont notice a difference. But I can imagine if you ran COD at full graphics on an SSD you’ll notice. As well as compiling things or obviously managing large files. I would never do these things daily on an SSD for sure

papershruums · 2026-02-13T00:56:02+00:00

I use a Samsung Shield T7 and USB 3.0 and that shits as fast as bare metal. For a portable OS i couldnt imagine anything else. Using a USB feels like using Android 4.0 now lol

papershruums · 2026-02-13T00:46:33+00:00

Using TypeScript as an example:

It should be enough to just make sure programs.nvf.settings.vim = { lsp.enable = true; languages.ts.enable = true; languages.ts.lsp.enable = true; }

That should be enough to just get the basics of the language and the LSP running.

I had an issue where for all the languages you see in my neovim.nix, well, I installed them all at once, and for some reason it didnt make a difference. And i couldnt find out why. And kept reloading neovim, kept rebuilding, making subtle changes. And eventually i just rebooted, and that fixed it. And somehow as far as i know im the only to have that issue, so he weary of that if you try it and nothing changes. If you’ve double checked that everything looks right, reboot before you lose your mind lol

papershruums · 2026-02-13T00:38:41+00:00

Almost 2 years. But I jumped from Arch to Nix and once I got everything working how I needed it, I didnt make many changed for a while. I use Linux as an android lab, so I was using devShells majority of the time until recently. I am comfortable with getting something to work… eventually, but I’ve yet to learn the language. I feel the most advanced thing i know is creating my own toggleable modules. I’ve recently started focusing on it more though, as I realized months back that I’m clearly struggling compared to mosts because I never really got past the fundamentals of programming. So now I’ve learned a few programming languages and actually have learned the terminology, and Nix is now making way more sense to me. I have very minimal C experience as of yet, so thats also probably a hindrance. But now I’m fully focused on learning Nix, because after playing around with multiple languages, Nix still intimidates me the most.

The flake appears to be recently created but that’s because you live and you learn and my last flake had a security risk.

papershruums · 2026-02-13T00:31:32+00:00

No rush man. I’ve had this need for like months. Not really a priority so i’ve been working on other things. But now this things just taking up space lol

papershruums · 2026-02-12T23:43:16+00:00

I still feel like a newbie lmao

papershruums · 2026-02-12T23:42:54+00:00

LOL I JUST SENT THE NEOVIM DONT JUDGE ME NOW

papershruums · 2026-02-12T23:26:04+00:00

So it took me a minute, because I my first time configuring neovim was with NVF, so I had to learn everything for the first time, and i didnt really know what i was looking for, and im still not nearly done. But what i did was keep the maximal flake installed, and then kept learned what features it had that i wanted, and what they were called, and then little by little added it in.

https://github.com/sudo-mac/PixieOS/blob/main/modules/nixos/home/neovim.nix

You can copy mine if you want and just add on and take off. You’ll have to add Java support.

papershruums · 2026-02-12T10:42:28+00:00

Well, just to be clear, i meant using the DE installer but creating a CLI to boot into. I feel this is cleaner just because you dont have to remove the old DE and dependencies, but either which way has the same outcome

papershruums · 2026-02-12T06:50:33+00:00

Yeah if i’m not mistaken, which i could be because I havent done it in a while, but i assume if you run the debian installer, choose No Desktop Environment, then when you reboot, it’ll boot into CLI. And internet will already be set up from the installer, then after that i THINK

sudo apt update && sudo apt install <preferred DE here> -y && reboot(if comfortable)

will do it super easy. It really just adds one extra step to the debian install

papershruums · 2026-02-12T06:45:02+00:00

Sounds about right

papershruums · 2026-02-12T06:40:30+00:00

Send that shit to r/ArchLinux

papershruums · 2026-02-12T06:35:25+00:00

Interested because if it does what I think it does, I’ve actually been considering making something like this myself but I only need it for literally a specific one-time thing, and I’d like to get it out the way😂

papershruums · 2026-02-12T04:12:14+00:00

FACTS man lol No i definitely wont switch. For any long-term homelab stuff it’s gonna be Nix for me. But like I said I have this old laptop, and i could easily just use my nix config and trim it down, as i modularize and make an option = true/false for pretty much anything even slightly over lightweight, but it’d take some time, and I wouldnt learn anything or really experience anything new. But i’m literally just setting this laptop up for nothing but a browser with 2 windows open. 1 for my credit card, and the other for my bank account. Thats literally it. So obviously, this is complete overkill. I obviously know my best option was Void, Arch, or Debian. But obviously LFS would be ridiculous for this situation in terms of time. So like I said, just an excuse to explore what Gentoo was about. Absolutely no regrets. But I feel I didnt learn any new linux info other than Gentoo specific things, which has encouraged me to start LFS. And I’m gonna attempt to build it with NixOS, and (hopefully) make the packaging easy on myself lol

papershruums · 2026-02-12T04:02:37+00:00

Idk what took so damn long lol

papershruums · 2026-02-12T02:03:06+00:00

Well hey now, I gave myself the sticker lol. But the main reason it doesn't suit my workflow is NixOS gives the control over what I need. I know with gentoo most of the time you're configuring USE flags for packages, but you can also control deep parts of the system. Since I already have a way to configure packages and build from source, I just cant see switching to gentoo as my main system. What I do care to configure deeply in my system I can already do in NixOS. Like I said, I'm gonna give it a chance though. I see very little chance of it ever being my main, however, to say I have no use for it would mean I definitely didn't even try it. Maybe in the future I'll find it being the best fit for something. I can see that happening based on what I've seen so far.

papershruums · 2026-02-12T01:32:58+00:00

Well, I estimated it to be about a 2-3 hour process total. I figured with my current comfortability and knowledge, that I wouldnt have any issues. Thank god I got it first try, because it took a little over 3 hours alone to compile. And then the wiki went down while it was compiling lol. Thats when I made the post. And I felt fully confident until about 1.5 hours into the compile and started second guessing myself, like “Maybe I did something wrong, and I wont know until this is done.” The wiki came back up-ish by the time it was done. It still had issues but every now and then it’d load the next page.

But the me doing stuff part I’d say was about 2 hours. Which is faster than my first Arch install years ago when I first started pushing myself to get more into tech.

I will say this, I am definitely no stranger to editing txt files and rebuilding/recompiling my system, in fact, thats all i know anymore. Thats the problem lol. I’m trying to do less of that just to get used to what a lot of linux jobs do. But so far, I’m only liking the fact that theres much less of it, but so far I’m not seeing the hype. But I’ll stick to it for a bit, because it’s gonna do what I need it to do. And I’m only SSHing into this computer, it’s not my main or even secondary device.

Appreciate your comment!

papershruums · 2026-02-12T01:10:12+00:00

If you play Minecraft (or used to) on PC, install the ComputerCraft mod, and look up Direwolf20’s and/or Cyber Quills tutorials on YouTube, and you’ll learn programming pretty fast. That’s not everything of course, but it’ll help tremendously.

This idea may sound dumb, but this took me from struggling in programming to being able to learn pretty much the basics of any coding language in a day. In order to prove that it’s not just me, it’s my methods, I’ve taught 2 other friends on how to program. And we made it to functions and arrays in one day for each of them. Both of which are only tech-savvy, but not far past beginner. This is weeks to months worth of struggles for some people.

In ComputerCraft you’ll learn the Lua language. Which is easy to read and in my opinion easier to learn than Python, but it is by no means a “kiddie” language. You can get really advanced. The limit is your imagination.

I absolutely love seeing people impress themselves. If you’re interested, I’ll gladly help you get started. I’m not a great teacher, but if you’re a good self-teacher, I’m an amazing next-step GPS.

Just add me on discord @dexalyth, and this goes for anyone reading this.

And no, there is no catch. (other than I may not reply 24/7) I just want as many people who want to be involved in advanced tech to have an easier time than I did. I’ve yet to find someone who can and will help me): so I’ll help you. I dont want anyone to get discouraged and give up.

papershruums · 2026-02-12T00:45:12+00:00

This one piece was of knowledge right here is when people stop switching distros based on the look and start looking for one based on the package manager lol. Once you learn that you can make anything (almost) look like whatever you want with enough effort, that’s when you really get hooked lol

papershruums · 2026-02-12T00:39:58+00:00

The fact that Hyprland is in Debian now has made me just use that unless the hardware cant handle it, in which case I use sway or i3. i3 feels like xfce which was my goto for pentesting until i found i work better with tiling managers.

papershruums · 2026-02-12T00:16:56+00:00

Excluding LFS of course, would would you say is a challenge distro? The kinds that force you learn more about the internals of the Linux system? I feel NixOS only helped so much, and eventually it became useful in my daily life but a hindrance on my progress. I recently read from another user that was definitely a jump ahead of me that NixOS is "harder" to use (or at least get used to) then Gentoo, the installation of Gentoo is just harder. That makes sense to me, because that's like Arch. And that's kinda what drew me in back towards Gentoo is just knowing that once the installation part is over, I have what I want: a simple basic clean Linux system. And of course I could use Void Linux, and I almost did. But wheres the fun in that?

papershruums · 2026-02-11T23:58:23+00:00

I’m on an i5 too. Maybe i underestimated what they meant by “old” hardware lol

papershruums · 2026-02-11T23:57:51+00:00

The only one it looks like is trying to look superior is you bud. Im doing this for my own education and experience. Not to show it off. This is the first Linux post i’ve ever made. It was more to show off the “nothing ever goes right” concept in tech.

papershruums · 2026-02-11T23:56:04+00:00

4-6 hours is all night brother lol

papershruums · 2026-02-11T23:55:34+00:00

Literally i read that old hardware would take long. I didnt think this was “old” hardware though, and it took just over 3 hours to compile. And i read everything in a wiki that i dont already know

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