Install without CD.
 

Hello All,

I would like to know is there any means to install Linux without a need for a bootable CD? The CD drive in my laptop is not recognizing the netinstall bootable CD for CentOS. So I was wondering is there any way to install it directly from the Internet or boot from a USB flash drive.

Thanks for your time.

Cheers,
Anand.

http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/ce...ch/074079.html

Which machine is this - there may be established workarounds?

Hi,

I see you're posting from Windows, so have a look at unetbootin. Using that tool you can easily setup an USB stick, download the OS you want and install it on the USB drive. Next boot from the USB drive and install your Linux to the harddrive of your computer. There are other ways too, but this one is one of the easiest ones around.

Kind regards,

Eric

Thanks for the suggestion.

I am just curious to know how & why you said "I see you're posting from Windows"...

I am actually using Ubuntu 9.10 on the PC from which I am writing this post.

Hello,

Correct, this post shows the Ubuntu icon below your name on the left. The original (first post) has a Windows icon, presumably XP, so that's why I said that I saw you're posting from Windows. LinuxQuestions gets that information from the useragent string of your browser. So I assume your first post was made from a Windows machine and now you're on Ubuntu machine posting.

Kind regards,

Eric

My laptop is a Toshiba Satellite M45-S269. For some strange reason, the BIOS was not recognizing the bootable CD which had the netinstall.iso. I tried few things like change the boot sequence (made CDROM as the first item in the sequence) and rebooted the machine. But it did not work at all. I powered down the machine completely. The next day when I booted the laptop and the bootable CD was recognized and I was able to install it. But the strange thing is, it is not complete yet. The installation and configuration process is terribly terribly slow. Usually how much time does it take to install and configure an enterprise edition of Linux. This is the first time I am doing it. So far I have only had Ubuntu and it takes hardly 1.5 hrs to get everything done. Have any of you seen this before? What could be wrong here?!?!?! I can only get to the install log only after its completely done.

Cheers...

Strange. I specified that the distro I am running as Ubuntu when I signed up for the LQ a/c.

The initial post was also from the same Ubuntu machine.

Anyways, thanks for your quick reply.