Use work laptop as personal device by dual booting on a separate internal drive?

StorageB@lemmy.one to Linux@lemmy.ml – 57 points –

I currently have a Dell laptop that runs Windows for work. I use an external SSD via the Thunderbolt port to boot Linux allowing me to use the laptop as a personal device on a completely separate drive. All I have to do is F12 at boot, then select boot from USB drive.

However, this laptop is only using 1 of the 2 internal M.2 ports. Can I install Linux on a 2nd M.2 drive? I would want the laptop to normally boot Windows without a trace of the second option unless the drive is specified from the BIOS boot options.

Will this cause any issues with Windows? Will I be messing anything up? For the external drive setup, I installed Linux on a different computer, then transferred the SSD to the external drive. Can I do the same for the M.2 SSD – install Linux on my PC, then transfer that drive to the laptop?

Any thoughts or comments are welcome.

Edit: Thank you everyone! This was a great discussion with a lot of great and thoughtful responses. I really appreciate the replies and all the valuable information and opinions given here.

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You might be surprised how much Intel corp security teams have.

Mind to elaborate?

Intel Management Engine

But are companies using that? Or is it just something intel may use for creepy shit?

So you're reading this as Intel built a way to spy on literally everyone as opposed to Intel built a feature for corp security teams? Interesting.

I just never thought of that. But yeah true point, ME neutering is a blessing and you shouldnt just put Linux on random spyware hardware and think it is private