Need to install Linux on Dell Inspiron 1110 Win 7 64-bit netbook w/no optical drive
 

I have 2.00 GB Ram, Service Pack 1, 250 GB HD 743 @ 1.30Ghz.

For my Linux class, I have to choose between:
• Fedora: Including Fedora, Red
Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and
CentOS.
• Debian: Including Debian, Ubuntu
and Mint.
• SUSE: Including SUSE and
OpenSUSE[/SIZE]

What's the question? Do you want someone here to make the decision for you? It might help someone make a suggestion if we new what you were planning to use the OS for.

Sorry, Can I use a virtual optical drive to install any Linux distro on my Dell netbook?
I'm taking a Linux class, and I have to install a Linux distro (above mentioned) on my Dell, which has no optical drive. Is this possible?

Are you installing to a VM?

I'd consider starting with a free virtual machine. You can then use iso image files to boot to almost any OS you want. It is the most safe and easy way to run linux.

Yes it possible in many ways. From VM mentioned already to dual boot to running off of external flash drive with persistence.
You need to specify which route may be preferable, some examples below

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...th+persistence

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...th+persistence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFRnCmmReqs

I hope you get the idea.

Happy Trails, Rok

Great advice, everyone! Looks like I'm going with a VM Player. I still need to pick a distro, but that's on another board.

Do I need a Hypervisor with the VM Player?

Try virtualbox it's easy to setup. If you try kvm then you'll need to see if your cpu supports it. I tried it on 1 of my installations & it complained about not having the right cpu-extensions although it's a 64-bit OS.
Also you can upgrade memory to 4 Gigs.

If windows is your host then you just pick a VM. May have to set bios settings to assist virtual support. Hopefully this system has support for a vm but I've used vm's way back on 486 processors.