Linux Installing Q

VeNT

VeNT

VeNT

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ok, figured out that the CD drive on my laptop is broken (well really it's the docks connection to the laptop but it's the same effect anyway) and I can't boot from USB, I've no floppy drive on my main PC so I figured 99% of my options are gone for installing linux on this bugger.

Then I thought, I've got a USB caddy I can pop it in and connect it up to my main PC.

Is there anyway I can run the install medum off the hard disk to install onto another partition on the same disk?

any ideas would be very wellcome, I'm hoping to install #!CrunchBang Linux on it.
 
would just show as USB (checked)
wanna hear somthing stupid?
damn thing can pickup the CD drive when I've an old Ubuntu disk in. starts loading it and everything.
I don't get it.
I'm gonna see if I can use this to fix it. any idea what the relevent command is in linux for FIXMBR?
 
ok so ubuntu doesn't get very far! past the whole "checking battery state" load part then sits with black screen and curser and doesn't do anything
looks like this is nearly dead sadly :( gonna miss my vaio
 
Two options...

1) pop lappy HDD in another computer and install. once complete, transfer HDD to old lappy... job done.

2) It's possible to clone an iso to a hard disk partition using dd and boot from that using grub. I haven't done it myself, but I've seen it done. Have a look on google, see what you find. (ok - not really an option - but interesting all the same ;))
 
if I put the laptop hard disk in my PC and install the system via that will it not totaly not work when I try and boot it in a laptop that is about 10 years older?
 
VeNT said:
if I put the laptop hard disk in my PC and install the system via that will it not totaly not work when I try and boot it in a laptop that is about 10 years older?
Click to expand...

I doubt it. Linux uses a monolithic kernel design (as opposed to the Windows microkernel) and most modern distros add kernel modules for pretty much everything around. Worst case scenario - you don't have suitable drivers in the initrd, so you use the fallback kernel (which is usually the kernel + initrd from the install media) which is bigger and has more stuff in it.

I recently "rebuilt" a friends Omnibook 900 - p2, 256MB RAM, no cd, no floppy, no inbuilt ethernet (so no pxe boot) using exactly this method and the only problem I had was that I had specified 1024x768x256 in grub and the monitor of this ancient thing was 800x600 and didn't scale.

Linux isn't like windows where it's tied to one piece of hardware, although you will probably have to reconfigure X or remove some old udev rules (oh noes!)

EDIT: in fact - if you want a "clean" install, why not set up a PXE server? should take you about half an hour to set up and you'll never have to burn another linux cd (so long as your laptop can boot from ethernet).
 
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it can!
any idea where I would get started with a PXE server? only other system I've got on the network is a Vista Home Prem 64bit
unless I can boot it from a live disk.
 
You're installing linux, so go with a linux pxe server (I have no idea if you can use RIS for this...)

There's plenty of guides on the internets, I used Arch the last time I made a PXE server, but have used Knoppix in the past as well.

I would look into creating a VM and binding a physical NIC to it and having a crossover cable from it to your lappy. Using a VM, you can re-use it without having to rebuild the server.
 
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh headake!
trying to setup a PXE server on vista, I've got crunchbang linux ISO but don't know what files to extract to the shared folder? HELP!
 
The guy above was on the money, go with PXE boot using a virtual machine, vmware is pretty damn cool aswell so its a nice intro for you.

Check out VMWare Free Server, if your desktop PC is powerful enough you wont even need that other machine oh and install CentOS 5.3 instead - comes highly recommended, got it running all kinds of services and its solid ;-)
 
Howdy,

My Tecra A2 no longer boots from CD [motherboard issue methinks] and can't boot from USB - I did a PXE setup last time, and i plan to do it again to fix it now that I broke it recently.

I used a physical install of Ubuntu on my main box, but this time I will be using a Virtualbox VM of Ubuntu. Google for "Ubuntu PXE boot server" or similar, there are a few step by step guides. It's not a cakewalk, but it's certainly not hard.

use the VirtualBox VM as the PXE server, and make sure it's networking is set to 'bridged' mode, so it sits on the same network range as the rest of your kit.

The rest is just a case of going through the motions - setting the PXE server up, pointing it's data folder to a symlink of the contents of a Live/install distro, and tell it which boot file to serve up - then boot up the lappy, hit the network boot option, and it will go just like there is a physicial CD ROM in the drive. I'd recommend using an Ununtu Desktop virtual machine, as the package manager sorts out 99% of the dependencies required for PXE serving. The only complicated part really is disabling the DHCP server on your router - the PXE box must control your network address allocations, so make sure before you do that, you give your other machines foxed IPs, including the PXE server. You can re-enable the DHCP server on the router afterwards though.

Do it, when it works I guarantee you'll be glad you know how to do it as it can save your backside, and if you know someone who has a similar problem, it's a cheap and easy way to earn a few free beers for saving their bacon, too :cool:
 
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