Hi,

Long story short I'm dealing with a failing CDROM drive. It's about to kick the bucket and isn't letting me install linux.

Is there a way to install directly from the ISO to the HD ?

Like ie ; take the puppylinux.iso and extract it off onto the HD ?

Thx

I've not tried it, but the GRUB2 (available from here) will, purportedly, let you boot from an ISO image on your HD.

Suggestion: If you try it, install it (GRUB2) on a floppy, and boot from there so the alpha software won't clobber your HD boot process.

Suggestion 2: If it does work, let us know here.

see:- http://www.linuxforu.com/teach-me/ti...t-from-an-iso/

Wow! Hey, sulekha I think you failed to note the date of that 2006 post.

At that time, GRUB2 was still in alpha testing, not released. If you're interested, here's a link to to one of the many sites where the use of GRUB2's loopback functionality to boot from ISO image files is discussed.

Basically, it's as simple as this. Assume you have a bootable ISO image with some Linux distribution on it, and that you're booting you system using GRUB2. Let's call the image Linux.img, and assume that it's located in your boot directory at /boot/iso/linux.img, and that the kernel ans inital RAM disk image files are at isolinux/kernel and isolinux/initd.img, respectively, in the image ISO image file. Then you just edit your /boot/grub.cfg file to add a stanza like this:

@ PTrenholme and anyone interested,

yes, no problem there, it works flawless with (ubuntu persistent) or without persistent option. valid ONLY with live CD distro/installer; with alternate distro/installer I could not get it working (no casper)

I'm using ubuntu 10.04 & 10.10; within ubuntu 40_custom file with persistent option added on linux.... line I can get it installed but with an usb pendrive labelled casper-rw.

however, any suggestions re full ubuntu install on HD partition straight off ....iso (no bootable CD/USB install media) ? below are just some personal thoughts re this topic

maybe using (booting off) a live CD,
download the ...iso, (it would be great if live and alternate would work, or just the live)
extract/mount the ...iso to /mnt
dd the /mnt to a data partition on HD ("burn" the extracted ..iso to HD instead of CD to any folder ? on any partition ?)
use a grub2 floppy to boot
at grub> issue ls (to find the extracted ...iso folder ; will it see it ?)
set root=....
linux /.....
initrd /.....
boot
hopefully the installer will open (or maybe not).

or maybe some other grub cmds ? what do you think please ? would it be possible to get linux installed WITHOUT the need os a CD/USB ? straight off the HD ?

thank you.

or maybe just proceed with installation (use the install option) after the ...iso file is fully loaded following addition of

menuentry "Linux ISO image" {
loopback loop /boot/iso/linux.iso
linux (loop)/isolinux/kernel boot=linux iso-scan/filename=/boot/iso/linux.iso noeject noprompt --
initrd (loop)/isolinux/initrd.img
}

to /etc/grub.d/40_custom file ? did not try it (I was afraid that it'll mess up my good working 9.10 10.04 and 10.10.

thank you.

A while ago I posted some info on how I installed slackware
from an iso file. Perhaps you could adapt this to your
particular distro.
Basically, you'll need: the iso file, an available partition to install
your new system, another partition to store the files extracted from
the iso, a live linux system to boot from and to launch the
installation ...
Here's the info:
http://vonbiber.byethost17.com/slack...ocd/index.html