Install Bulky Linux Distribution Without Burning a CD
Apr
07
This tutorial is about installing Fedora Linux without burning a CD/DVD.
Scenario/ Assumption:
1) You have Microsoft Windows
2) You have your system drive as C: (No matter whether it is FAT or NTFS)
3) You have Fedora .ISO files in the root directory of some partition (the partition must be FAT!)
4) You need to have a program that can open up the .ISO files. You can use free file archiver. 7zip works great. In this tutorial I am using Winrar.
Steps:
- Go to C: drive and create a directory; name it boot
- Open the .ISO file with Winrar. Inside isolinux directory, you will find two files: initrd.img and vmlinuz. Extract these two files to boot directory you have created in step 1 above
- Go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/grub4dos to download grub4dos. This is required to boot grub from dos.
- Extract the contents of grub4dos. Rename the directory to grub and copy it inside boot directory.
- Inside the grub directory, you will find two files; grldr and grldr.mbr. Copy these two files to your C: root directory
- Open boot.ini file which contains the boot information for Windows. You need to enable Show Hidden Files and Show System Files to view it in C: root directory. The easiest way is to type C:\boot.ini in the Run dialog box.
- Type C:\grldr=”Start GRUB” at the bottom of boot.ini and save it.
- Open menu.lst file with Notepad which is inside C:\boot\grub directory and type the following lines at the bottom:
title Install Fedora Linux
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img - Save the menu.lst file and restart your computer.
Kalmi Says:
Have a look at http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
[Reply]
Posted on April 30th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Aronzak Says:
^No, he’s talking about keeping the Windows bootloader.
This can create major issues with resizing a partition. Have you ever correctly installed a distro like this?
You can also do this using supergrubdisk.
Also worthy of note, most distros will let you install extra packages from a directory on a disc, or even an iso.
[Reply]
Posted on October 16th, 2008 at 1:50 am