instructions for installing via usb with ALTERNATE cd?

[Matt Price]

hi,

i'm trying to instlal gutsy on an ibm thinkpad x31, which has no disk
drive.  I've found and followed the instructions for installing via usb
here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LiveUsbPendrivePersistent
however these instructions use the live cd, and as i have only 256M RAM
on this computer, the installation always fails with an out-of-memory
oerror.  

Does anyone know how to put the alternate cd onto a usb 'pen drive' &
make it bootable?  I tried, blindly, just mounting the cd image:
sudo mount gutsy-alternate.iso ~/ubuntuCD
then copying everything over to the usb drive
sudo rsync -azvb ~/ubuntuCD/ /media/ubuntu
then making a second copy of the isolinux folder contents in the root
directory:
sudo rsync -azvb ~/ubuntuCD/isolinux/  /media/ubuntu
then renaming and modifying isolinux.cfg
cp isolinux.cfg syslinux.cfg
with stanzas modified approximately how they were modified forthe live
cd:
LABEL install
  menu label ^Install in text mode
  kernel vmlinuz
  append  file=preseed/ubuntu.seed initrd=initrd.gz --

anyway, this is all following the wiki instructions, but blindly
applyingthem to the alternate cd.  In any case, the initial syslinux
screen comes up, and it gets me to a screen that says "loading the linux
kernel" then the kernel appears to load, and the screen goes blank.
andthat's it.  i'm wondering if it can't find the root file system or
something, or if it's missing the video drivers...  i just don't know.

so, i'm just hoping that someone on the list has some ideas about howto
proceed.  Thansks much,

matt

 

-- 
Matt Price
matt.price at utoronto.ca
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