I've recently migrated from a MacBook Pro to a Lenovo ThinkPad e550 and I have some preliminary (extremely nooby) questions on getting started with my Ubuntu installation.
On the Ubuntu website, it mentions that prior to beginning installation I should back up Windows on a bootable USB drive. I presume the purpose of this is in the case that I ever want Windows 10 back. The thing is I'm already familiar with Ubuntu (computers at my university have it installed) and I can't think of a scenario in which I'd want Windows back, or a scenario in which I'd want to dual-boot. What is your recommendation?
In the case that I decide to do the bootable USB drive, what would be a proposed step-by-step guide for me to accomplish it? Buy USB drive and follow guide on the Windows website?
In the case I choose to forego the bootable USB drive, is there anything I should keep in mind?
I keep hearing the word partition, what does this mean? I'm fairly certain I don't want to share my disk drive with Windows, would a partition apply to my scenario?
Lastly, I don't know if this is the right place to ask and excuse me (or direct me) if it's not the right place, but prior to the loss of my MacBook (water damage incident), I had all my files backed up on a Seagate external hard drive. How would I go about migrating my files to this laptop? Are there any special considerations since the backups were done by Time Machine on the Mac OS? Noobiest of all, every time I plug the hard drive into my laptop it doesn't seem to detect it?
Bonus question. In the case of the bootable USB drive, would I be able to perform the backup of Windows on my external hard drive?
I apologize for my extreme lack of knowledge, I'm feeling rather lost so any answers/clarifications are greatly appreciated.
EDIT: Is there anything I should keep in mind to ensure the installation runs as smoothly as possible? Will I need to have a Ubuntu on a disk to install it?