My PC:
Acer aspire T3-715
Windows 10 Home 64b. 22H2
SSD 128GB and SATA3 HDD 1T x 2pcs 2T capacity
CPU Intel Core i5-6400
DDR4-SDRAM 16GB 2133MHz
GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950

I want to install Peppermint on this machine and want Peppermint start the machine alone without Windows 10.

My question: Is this practical?

Thanks.
DiaNobb

Yes.

If you wish, the installer can completely wipe out all traces of Windows 10, replacing the contents of the 128GB boot SSD with a clean Peppermint install. You can also reformat the other hard drives to something like ext4 file system, which will work better than NTFS (the file system used by Windows).

IsaacKuo
Thank you.
I have to keep Windows OS in my PC for official business. What I am thinking of is having both Peppermint and Windows co-existing in one PC and only Peppermint starting the machine when power button is pressed on.

Ah, what you want is called a "dual boot" installation. This is where you can choose which OS to boot up, but the other one is simply inactive and "dormant".

There are a number of ways to accomplish this. One popular option is to reduce the size of the Windows partitions, so there's enough free space to install Linux in the free space (the Linux installer will create a new partition in this free space). However, things can get complex if you need to restore things to the original state.

In your case, it may make more sense to leave the Windows SSD untouched, and install Peppermint on a new SSD. Or you could start off trying it out on one of the HDDs, shrinking the NTFS partition a small amount to provide, say, 60GB of free space for the linux install.

The point is - you're not messing around with the Windows SSD, which basically gives Windows free reign to do whatever it wants to with that SSD's partitions.

Thank you, Mr. IsaacKuo

Yes, "dual boot" installation. This is exactly what on my mind. Used to install Windows XP and Windows 7 on the same machine. The software managing boot options was EasyBCD in those days. I wonder if EasyBCD works well on Linux systems.

No. I do not want to touch the SSD. It is
too much a hassle.

"Or you could start off trying it out on one of the HDDs,"
Yes, this is what I want to do. But do not understand "shrinking the NTFS partition a small amount to provide, say, 60GB of free space for the linux install."

Why not install Linux on the whole HDD?

No, it is and always has been windows only software although it could be used to boot a Linux OS. This has changed with the coming of UEFI (you need to read about UEFI). Microsoft has prohibited Neosmart (the company which wrote the EasyBCD software) from enabling it to write software to boot other systems in UEFI mode. The link below is to the neosmart site which gives a brief explanation of it.

https://neosmart.net/wiki/easybcd/uefi/

If you have windows on the 128GB SSD and want to keep that and install Peppermint to the other drive, you can do that. You should familiarize yourself with Linux device/partition naming conventions so you select the proper drive. This should not be difficult as you appear to have different types and sizes of drives. Do you have anything on the other drive now? If so, you need to make sure to select an install option which will not overwrite anything.

I would suggest, if you have not done so already, that you put your Peppermint on a usb/dvd and try it out before installing.

Oh, you can do that. I just didn't know whether or not you already had (NTFS formatted) data on the drive that you wished to keep.

If you had lots of data already on the drive, you'd want to only shrink the partition a bit to provide the necessary space.

Once you have set-up your dual boot computer, you can set the default OS of your choice in the Grub bootloader configuration. A web search for "default os grup" will turn up a number of articles and forum threads as to how to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Yancek.

1. Appreciate the information about EasyBCD.
2. Will you please recommend a software for the dual-boot?
3. Peppermint is not exactly what I want. I prefer Mint Cinnamon to Peppermint.
4. I have three empty SATA3 HDDs. Plan to install Mint Cinnamon on one of these HDDs.
5. Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, I'll put Cinnamon on a USB and try it out on an old machine used to run Windows 7.

Mr. IsaacKuo, thank you again.

I have three empty HDDs, one is a Seagate Momentus 2.5" and 120GB, two are WD10EZEX SATA3 3.5" hard drives, capacity of each is 1.0TB. I plan to have Mint Cinnamon installed on the 2.5" hard drive. Does is make any difference to install Cinnamon on a 2.5" dirve or a 3.5" drive?

Thank you, Mr. Frankbell.

Appreciate the suggestion and information.

FYI tangent (to leave M$Win10 running, and try Linux, like any app/game/etc)
http://OSboxes.org/virtualbox
(un-7z the .vdi & "Use Existing VHD"). Done, 'easy' & 100%safe, in minutes)

You don't need any specific software. If you will be installing Mint on a separate drive from windows, you will be able to select the drive you want from your BIOS firmware Boot Options when you boot. If you updata grub on Mint after installing it, you should also have an entry in the Mint Grub bootloader file where you can select either it or windows.

The installer will not care about any differences between 2.5" drives and 3.5" drives. Generally, 2.5" drives have slower performance, but either way it's not going to be as zippy as an SSD.

Thank you, Mr. Yancek.

"...to select the drive you want from your BIOS firmware Boot Options..."

Got it. Appreciate it very much.
DiaNobb