Boot from SSD:
As you know unfortunately the Pi4 was released with half-baked support for USB3 and this means that as yet it is not possible to boot from USB3 and a half-baked SD/USB3 boot combo has to be used.
I found the methodology used in James Chambers Blog to be very useful as it identifies the few USB3/SSD adapters that actually work. (I have used the Startech adapter, and shown that my Sabrent Adapter sometimes fails for unknown reasons). It also details the steps to use a SD as pre-boot storage before handing over to the SSD.
Unfortunately he does not highlight that the PARTUUID of the SD and SSD MUST be different. I have not found a simple way of doing this other than to burn Raspbian Buster to the SD, and expand and update it before imaging it and copy it to the SSD. The process is then repeated by burning a new Raspbian to the SD. If anyone knows a more simple way of ensuring different PARTUUIDs please post.
I would also recommend double-checking that the SSD is root before altering fstab otherwise you will just get an unresponsive Pi and have to repeat everything!
(Real) Firefox:
Chrome on Pi is slow and a memory hog. Best to avoid both it and Google’s intrusive infrastructure. Better to use Firefox for a snappy browser. Unfortunately I keep on having to use that word with the Pi4, but the Raspbian Firefox ESR is ancient. It is better to install a real Firefox which can be obtained on GitHub from Jdonald. Still old but not that old. The downside of course is that you will be operating outside the normal distro updates.
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