I first came about this when trying to boot a Debian derivate.
A friendly user named d4p told me how he booted his derivative.

So I tested it too and failed. Being curious I edited his code
and ended up with a surprising success and could boot almost all
Ubuntu derivates I tried it on. So far I have tested Bodhi linux,
Peppermint linux, Ubuntu Linux and the one I like best.

LMDE 11. Works best due to it has Flash so I can watch youtube and
streaming vids from nearest local TV station. Here is how one do it.

You have a standard computer bought in or at the Supermarket Shop.
Acer D250 Netboot or any other of that Laptop versions.

You already have a grub4dos on it. If you don't have that then I
don't know how to add one. Sorry.

Add this code to the grub4dos menu.lst


title linuxmint 11 Gnome LMDE 2011 iso boot on NTFS
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /linuxmint-11-gnome-dvd-32bit.iso
kernel /linuxmint11/casper/vmlinuz persistent file=/cdrom/preseed/mint.seed boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/linuxmint-11-gnome-dvd-32bit.iso noeject noprompt quiet splash --
initrd /linuxmint11/casper/initrd.lz

I downloaded this iso from the usual place for LMDE download.
linuxmint-11-gnome-dvd-32bit.iso

I place it on the C:/ and using a linux extracting program I dragged out the casper directory and preseed the rest on the /mnt/home/
which can have another name on your computer.

Mine is on sda3 but that seems to not be important. This part
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /linuxmint-11-gnome-dvd-32bit.iso

do a search until it finds the iso

Now to these codes
noeject does not prompt you to take the CD out of the tray.
noprompt I am not sure maybe it don't ask you to provide log in and instead log you in as Live Session user?
quiet seems to stop you from seeing a lot of text get printed on the screen.
splash does show a cool graphic of LMDE
-- I have no idea what them do. Some codes have them and some don't.

Hope it works for you too. I have wanted this since 2008 so happy
that Linux Mint finally allowed it to work. I am a pessimist though.
I trust them do some patch that makes it fail next update so don't expect it to work after next update. it can be something them missed this version of the iso.

I failed to get Zorin linux and Dream linux going though.
So it is not a fail safe way to boot.

When I tested it on Ext3 then it failed to allow writing to the drive I booted from.
So I trust this will only work until next bug upgrade them make. It is something odd
about that it works at all. It is not something the Devs wants to be that way.

Edit

Not every Ubuntu variety boot but at least seven different that
I have tested did boot.

Ubuntu 11.10, Lubuntu 2011, Xubuntu 2011, Linux Mint 2011 but
not LMDE that is based on Debian. Netrunner and Zeven OS and
Tango Studio and SuperOS and SuperX and a few more.

One of those that failed was Pear OS. Not sure why.

Since then I have tested this on many Ubuntu and also on Linux Mint 11 and also on LM 12 RC
and it also allow me to boot as single user root but that was not easy for a noob like me.

There where nothing there to explain how one get the menu going so I had to use terminal
on Desktop and that way I could get gedit going and firefox but not knowing the name of
any file browser I could only browse files using gedit to change a html file and a menu.lst
file to get evidence that I was really root user.

whoami told me to be root too.

But maybe neither ubuntu nor Linux Mint forums allow me to describe how one do it?
What rules does LinuxQuestions have about such things.

I can not read the rules due to my severe ADHD and dyslexia. I fail to find such abstract texts.

Hello nooby,

Do you want to try out Pear? i got it to boot loosely based on your instructions

I bet you didn't change initrd.lz to initrd.gz

Here's the grub4dos menu.lst entry I used:

title Pear Installer boot (sdb9/casper)
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /casper/initrd.gz
kernel /casper/vmlinuz persistent file=/cdrom/preseed/custom.seed boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/pear-os-linux-panther-v3.0-x32.iso noeject noprompt
initrd /casper/initrd.gz

Fancy that eh? I, a seasoned "user" learning this off of a "perennial" "nooby"!

By the way, I have them all on sdb9, no windows ntfs here but I can't see why it won't work as long as you adjust your paths to suit. Of course you can add back the "quiet splash --" to your kernel line, but I prefer to see the output.

Thanks for this and I hope my little entry is of help to you.

Jay cool!
You could be right. I have to test to see. I have already
made that mistake many times to not realize that some ubuntu
has lz and others have gz instead and some even xz? Not sure.

It is my ADHD that makes me hit Enter too fast instead of looking
in Casper if it was lz or gz. So I give it a try again. I may have
deleted pear already but look for it again then. Thanks for friendly thoughts
about my sloppy or cheating way of booting. I've been told that one should
always warn that this kind of "cheat booting" may make the boot more vulnerable
to exploit due to some permissions will be set aside. So feel warned now!

I wouldn't believe that! Ubuntu recommends a very similar method to boot to install if you have no CD drive. I tried it but I couldn't figure the grub4dos menu.lst entry out. I could boot but not get past the initramfs. Anyway, I stumbled on your method. It works just the same.

Besides, the main FS is loaded rw so what harm can come of that? Of course your data is vulnerable, as is every user who has there own data and connects to any other computer, no matter who they are.

I had same reaction here. It says (intramfs) Unable to find a medium containing a live file system.

That is not how almost all the other ubuntu works. Suppose you test 10 or 20 different
Ubuntu and their derivatives like Linux Mint 12.

Then only two out of ten or two out of twenty act like Pear does.

So the Devs of Pear has changed something that looks for that live medium and fails to find it.

Could it be the dreaded ntfs-3g.gz or something? If you compare to Netrunner 4.0 or 3.2
which both are a Kubuntu variety.

I used both your code and my usual and they gave both same result on Pear
but does boot Netrunner.

title Netrunner 2011 frugal iso boot of netrunner-4.0.iso
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /netrunner-4.0.iso
kernel /netrunner40/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/netrunner.seed boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/netrunner-4.0.iso locale=en_US console-setup/modelcode=pc105 console-setup/layoutcode=se noeject noprompt
initrd /netrunner40/casper/initrd.lz

I have not tested netrunner using the find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /netrunner/casper/initrd.gz but that maybe boot too. if it is important I can test it.

So what about Pear. is it better than Netrunner? Netrunner using KDE is a bit bloated and slow but have all the codex that I want. I don't have to install anything it has all what I want.

Sadly some built in feature makes FF act up on some pages