Installing an OS over the existing OS

Thu Feb 16 00:57:02 UTC 2023

On 2/15/23 18:53, Aaron Rainbolt wrote:
>
> On 2/15/23 18:24, Phil wrote:
>>
>> On 16/2/23 10:09, Aaron Rainbolt wrote:
>>> On 2/15/23 17:36, Phil wrote:
>>
>>> 1. Take the hard drive out of the computer, plug it into another 
>>> more capable computer, and then use virtualization to install an OS 
>>> onto the drive.
>>> 2. Figure out how to get the system to boot from a USB. If it has 
>>> USB boot support, that's hopeful, you may just need to make the 
>>> bootable USB in a particular way in order to get the system to 
>>> recognize it.
>>> 3. Use a live distro (like Puppy Linux) that is designed to be run 
>>> from an ISO file, add a boot entry for it in GRUB, and then simply 
>>> boot Puppy from the image file - you can use the rest of the drive 
>>> to store your files.
>>
>> Thank you Aaron, option 2 is by far the best option.
>>
>> I created a bootable USB stick on another laptop using both etcher 
>> and rufus. The A100 wouldn't boot from either. I also tried using 
>> etcher on the A100, same result. I tried using unetbootin to create a 
>> bootable USB stick but sudo ./unetbootin_etc only displays a message 
>> asking if I want to remove the existing version. No, I just want it 
>> run again!
>>
>> Frustration is starting to set in.
>>
> OK, let's try it. I'm going to assume you're installing Debian 11 
> 32-bit, since it's probably your best bet for a good OS on a 32-bit 
> system.
>
> Firstly, don't use UNetbootin - it does some weird things that are 
> problematic for some distros. Let's do this the manual way, by copying 
> files and using grub-install.
>
> The first step is to download the ISO obviously. For a more 
> Xubuntu-like experience, the 32-bit XFCE Live ISO is probably the best 
> option here. The ISO can be downloaded with this link: 
> https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/i386/iso-hybrid/debian-live-11.6.0-i386-xfce.iso 
> You may also want the SHA512SUMS file for checking the ISO's integrity 
> - that way a failed download can be caught. 
> https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/i386/iso-hybrid/SHA512SUMS
>
> (Alternatively, if you're OK with experimental software and want a 
> rolling release that's also made by some of the Xubuntu developers, 
> you might check out https://xebian.org/ but be warned that Xebian is 
> based on Debian Sid which is dangerous if you don't know what you're 
> doing. The main ISOs are a bit broken, the development ISOs seem to 
> work right for me the times I've used them. They can be gotten from 
> https://xebian.org/download/pending/)
>
> Once you have your ISO of choice, it's time to make the USB.
>
> Find some USB you're OK with wiping entirely. Don't insert it yet.
>
> Next, open a terminal (usually you can do this with Ctrl+Alt+T). In 
> the terminal, run `lsblk` (without the backticks - I just use those to 
> make clear what is and isn't part of a command). This will display 
> what drives are in your system. Then insert the USB, wait a bit, and 
> then run `lsblk` again. A new drive should have popped up - this is 
> most likely your USB. Make sure its size matches the size of the USB 
> reasonably close (it probably won't be an exact match, it will be a 
> bit smaller - an 8 GB drive will reasonably show up as about 7.50 GB. 
> But it shouldn't show up as 4 GB or 64 GB :P) The drive will probably 
> have an ID that looks like "sdx". I will *assume* that your USB drive 
> is "sdx" for the rest of this - anywhere you see "sdx", replace it 
> with your USB drive's ID. (Make sure you do this replacement or you 
> may overwrite the wrong drive and lose data!)
>
> OK, next step is to partition the drive. Run `sudo fdisk /dev/sdx`. 
> (The "/dev/" part is necessary, again replace "sdx" with your USB 
> drive's ID.) Now type `o` and press Enter to make a new partition 
> table. Next, `n` and Enter to create a new partition. Press Enter four 
> times - this will finish creating the partition and make it include 
> the whole drive. Finally, type `w` and press Enter to save your changes.
>
> Next, format the new partition. Run `sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdx1`. The 
> "1" at the end is necessary - that identifies the partition you want 
> to format (which in this instance is the first and only partition on 
> the drive). This will run for a bit. When it's done, you should have a 
> formatted USB drive.
>
> Next step is to mount the ISO. Make a folder to mount the ISO file to 
> (`mkdir DebianISO` should do the trick). Then, `sudo mount 
> /path/to/debian-live-11.6.0-i386-xfce.iso ./DebianISO` to mount the 
> ISO. (Obviously, change the path to the ISO to wherever your ISO is 
> located. The filename will also vary depending on what ISO you 
> downloaded.) Once you have the ISO mounted, run `ls ./DebianISO` to 
> make sure you can see files from the ISO.
>
> Next, mount the USB drive. You can run `ls /mnt` to make sure that the 
> /mnt directory is empty - it usually is. If so, run `sudo mount 
> /dev/sdx1 /mnt` to mount the partition from your USB drive.
>
> Now we can copy the files. Run `sudo cp ./DebianISO/. /mnt/` to copy 
> the contents of the ISO to the USB. (Make sure every character is 
> there and there are no typos. Every slash and period in the command is 
> either necessary or a good idea to have there.)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I messed up the cp command 
here! It's `sudo cp -a ./DebianISO/. /mnt/`. I missed the -a. Sorry 
about that.
>
> We now almost have a bootable USB, but there's one more step - 
> installing a bootloader. Thankfully, the ISO already has a 
> configuration file for GRUB included, so all we have to do to make the 
> USB bootable is to install GRUB. And that can be done with one 
> command: `sudo grub-install --boot-directory /mnt/boot /dev/sdx`. 
> (Don't append a "1" to the end of this command - you install GRUB to 
> the entire device, not a partition on the device.)
>
> With all that complete, now we just need to clean up. Run `sudo umount 
> /mnt && sudo umount ./DebianISO && sync` and that should do all the 
> needed cleanup work, unmounting the USB, the ISO, and helping to make 
> sure all changes are written to disk. (The umount commands probably do 
> that already but I like to run sync just in case since I'm a bit silly 
> that way :P)
>
> Finally, remove the USB from the computer, shut it down, insert it, 
> and try to boot from it.
>
> Good luck! Let us know how that goes and if you get hung up.
>
-- 
Aaron Rainbolt
Lubuntu Developer
https://github.com/ArrayBolt3
https://launchpad.net/~arraybolt3
@arraybolt3:lubuntu.me on Matrix, arraybolt3 on irc.libera.chat

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