Installing Garuda on a seperate drive with another OS on a different drive

Issues & Assistance Newbies
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Hello, I am a new Linux user and previously I have been using Debian alongside Windows 10 on my laptop (Dell G3 17). On this laptop, I have two hard drives: One is an NVMe SSD which contains Debian, and the other is a regular SSD which contains Windows. I have it set up in the UEFI menu so that the NVMe SSD (containing Debian) is first in boot priority. Thus, when I boot up my laptop, it goes to Grubmenu, and it detects both my Windows 10 OS on my first hard drive and my Debian OS on my secondary hard drive, and I am able to choose.

I want to replace Debian (on my NVMe SSD) with Garuda, as I have been having problems with Debian getting it to work with NVIDIA drivers. How would I go about this? Is there anything special I need to do in the installer to make it so I install Garuda on the NVMe SSD and leave the Windows SSD untouched? And will it allow me to select either OS in Grubmenu when I start? Could someone walk me through the basic setup procedure for this, as I am quite new to Linux.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am NOT dual booting on seperate partitions of a single hard drive. I have TWO SEPERATE HARD DRIVES with seperate OS's and I would like to be able to boot into either hard drive in GRUBmenu at start up. I want the entire NVMe drive containing Debian to be formatted and replaced entirely with Garuda, with the Windows SSD left untouched by the Garuda installer.

Thank you.

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In your case you can let the installer do all the heavy lifting. When you get to partitioning make sure you select the drive with Debian on it and chose use entire disk. Continue the setup and once installed and booted to Grub you should see Garuda and Windows listed.

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I see. Thank you. And under the drop down which says "Boot loader location" I should select the Master Boot Record of the Debian drive as well, correct? (The one I will be erasing and replacing with Garuda)

Another unrelated question: I plan to upgrade the RAM in my laptop from 8GB to 32GB. Should I do this before or after the Garuda installation (does it matter?) and is there anything I need to do to allow Garuda to recognize the new RAM or will it work right out of the box once it is installed in my laptop?

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Yes, we can :slight_smile:

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If you select yse entire disk it will setup and show you what you partutions will look like. All you have to do is click nexy, review, and except if your happy with what the review says.

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Key phrase for a new thread.

Only if you want to use hibernation. If you do, make sure to set up enough swap space to hold your RAM contents (but that's the same as Debian. :wink:).

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My bad on the Swap. I'm so use to not select to create one I forget about it.

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Thank you for the response. Will I have any problems installing/booting Garuda on an NVMe SSD versus booting from a regular SSD?

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There's one easy way to find out. :man_shrugging:

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What he said, but seriously no you should be fine. I have a NVMe M.2 and have had no issues with it during or after install.

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I run garuda linux on a nvme no problems, runs so fast

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hahahahahahaaaaaaaaa I LOOOOVEEEEE your username and avatar! lmfaoooooo just saying! hahaha very clever! In another unrelated mention, I once saw another username/avatar combo that really tickled me, it was on the Dread forum on Tor (you may or may not be familiar) in the "Fraud" section....guy made his username "Scamuel Jackson" hahaha....that one tickled me too! lol

Anyways, carry on gents! :wink:

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