Chromebook to Linux Questions

So, I have a few questions. (And yes, I know I’m the person everyone makes fun of for thinking they can just dive into Linux without knowing anything. I know. T^T)

  1. Am I able to download PuppyOS (or any distro) onto the hard drive/main files to not necessitate a flash drive (& not be limited to ≤2 GB)?
  2. Can this be done from the UEFI shell, and if not, please explain how?
  3. Is there a difference between flashing a USB drive and a ‘clean install’? (reddit comment, don’t fully understand)
  4. If none of the above, any clue how to fix mouse/keyboard issue?
    Or suggestions on how I should proceed from here in the core boot. Would really appreciate any advice/direction here.

–Background–
I logged onto my '20 HP Chromebook (AUE/EOL) one day & it was officially broken, couldn’t even load basic sites.
Really needed to use my PC & recently read about Linux. Found MrChromeBox and decided to utilize.
However, I only had a 2GB flash drive available at the time- so I went forward without a ChromeOS backup. (And I had no plans of going back to Chrome since now officially broken.)
PuppyOS was the most simple and small package I found to download that would fit.
Installed that on my USB drive and marched ahead.
However, I soon realized the downsides: extremely slow startup time, non working keyboard/mouse (works w/external setups), very basic OS.
Could make this work, but either need to find an actual solution without the flash drive. Or at least fix the mouse/keyboard conundrum.
Thanks again in advance.

Any “netinstall” image should fit fine on a 2gb flash drive. Heck even a live Debian image would likely fit.

Id also recommend checking for firmware updates before proceeding.

If you wanted to stick to PuppyOS, it’s highly likely that internal touchpad and keyboard do not work due to kernel modules being disabled. You would likely need to re-compile the kernel

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