Correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation, but every instance of causation is accompanied by at least one correlation.

Disregarding correlation entirely is equally fallacious.

Called it

That’s a pretty gross oversimplification of inertia. The more mass an object has, the more energy that’s required to accelerate it.

The genius lies in the understanding that a heavy object, once moving, will prefer to continue moving than come to a rest. This is why an 18-wheeler needs more distance to stop than a small car. Some people’s intuition tells them that a heavy object will come to a rest quickly.

There are distros designed for your use case. Research “portable” distros to get what you’re after without having to crowbar it.

Thank you for the implementation advice, that was my next question.

I have an old drive I installed Win 10 on a few years ago. It was a fresh build, so it would have been the only drive in the machine when I installed it. The software I need is already installed there and in a working state.

I also have a new machine with a new drive. I installed Mint on the new drive while it was the only drive in the new machine.

My plan is to move the Win 10 drive from the old machine to the new one. In the BIOS, I would set the Linux drive as the default boot option. When I need Windows, I would boot into BIOS and select the Windows drive as a one-time boot option.

Am I on the right track?

“Doesn’t make a profit” doesn’t mean “is run inefficiently”. It doesn’t even mean “doesn’t generate excess value”. It just means excess value is reinvested into the system, like the US Post Office. It never makes money, never has made any money, has always either saved or reinvested the money left over on the balance sheet at the end of the year.