this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
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I wouldn't recommend swapping afterwards, moving devices around is a good way to confuse a bootloader and run into problems.
I think you should create your installation medium, remove the Windows SSD from laptop, install your new one, then install Linux.
You won't need anything special to transfer files, but keep in mind windows 11 uses bitlocker by default, you'll probably want to disable that while windows SSD is still in the laptop, otherwise that drive will remain encrypted and inaccessible by Linux.
Good luck!
I would only be swapping once and then having the windows SSD in the USB C hub. Would you still recommend that I install the SSD straight away in the laptop and set it up from there?
Well, if Garuda's installer does what it's supposed to do and assigns your boot drive by UUID, it really shouldn't matter. I still think swapping before install and having the system in the planned final configuration minimizes the risk of failure.
Some background: There was a time in history where boot devices were defined by their physical port location, so if you reordered or moved drives, it was up to the user to update the boot config to align it to the new location. If the user didn't know to do that step, the computer would fail to boot. Modern linux distros should use the drive's unique hardware identifier to find the device, wherever it's plugged in.
Linux bootloaders discover the correct linux volume by UUID (which is in the filesystem), or PARTUUID (which is in the GPT table). It'll look at every drive, and when it sees the matching one it'll look in that partition, find the kernel & initrd, suck them into ram, and launch the kernel.
The main problem with moving drives around is - where is the EFI firmware looking for the bootloader in the first place? If you read efibootmgr, the efi data is pretty simple and very much tied to a hardware port. The EFI takes the most preferred bootloader entry, goes to that drive, and runs a file like "\EFI\grub\grubx64.efi". If that file isn't right there, the EFI isn't going to look elsewhere for it.
There is one bootloader name that EFI will pluck out of the blue and (smash the Fx key) offer to you as a boot option - "\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI". Self booting usb installers use that, but you could use it too. Put all the other files that go along with the bootloader in with that boot folder, and rename the appropriate .efi to bootx64.efi.
One thing that I've done on odd setups is to put rEFInd on the efi partition as the boot\bootx64.efi loader. It'll do a pretty fancy job of detecting what's bootable (may need an additional filesystem_driver.efi), or even chain into grub to finish the startup.