install ubuntu without CD-rom drive?

JeremyWorst ulist at gs1.ubuntuforums.org
Thu Sep 14 13:46:33 UTC 2006


Thanks to all for your responses.  I have made one attempt to get to the
harddrive to put it into another PC, but got a little nervous that I'd
take it apart and not be able to get it back together again.  Unlike
the Dells that provide for easy HD removal, this Toshiba requires
removing screws, opening the case, etc.  I'm afraid I'll dislodge one
of the microscopic connections in there.  I have found some pictures
regarding how to do this, so maybe I'll try again this weekend.



Starting with a floppy distribution sounds promising too, and I'm
looking into that.  I don't think a minimalist distro is necessary
though, since the laptop has 128MB RAM.  I have the latest Xubuntu CD,
and would like to figure out how to install that, since I think it'd
work ok on this relatively slow system.



I'd love to install through netboot, since it just sounds so darn
elegant.  Unfortunately all the instructions for this seem to require a
little more networking know-how than I possess.  It's not worked yet and
I suspect that I'm not getting the IP addresses set right.  I've been
trying to follow the instructions here
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/QuickNetboot.  I'm
trying to use my working Ubuntu laptop (a Dell CPx, also quite old) as
the server, with the Xubuntu CD in the CD drive, then install onto the
Toshiba via netboot from the CD in the Dell.



One issue that I'm concerned about is that if I ever get any flavor of
Linux installed on the laptop, I won't be able to get the OS to
recognize the CD drive.  I have Win ME (woohoo!) (I'm being
sarcastic...) installed on it, simply because I have an unused licensed
copy of it and was able to get the drivers DL'd from the Freecom
website.  I tried Win2000, but couldn't get it to recognize the CD
drive so it wouldn't install.  Freecom offers no Linux drivers or
support that I can find.



Thanks again for all the help.  If anybody thinks of anything else,
post it, I'll read it!


-- 
JeremyWorst




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