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UBUNTU TIPS AND TRICKS

Alternative Installation Methods for Feisty

- How to install Ubuntu Feisty over network or from a hard-disk.

By: Mihai Marinof, Linux Editor

Enlarge picture

Besides installing from a bootable CD, Ubuntu can be installed using other methods as well, which might prove handy in some circumstances. For instance, you might find yourself in the situation when you need to install Ubuntu on one or more machines with no CD-ROM drives, but with an active network connection. For that, you will need another machine on the network that will provide the installation files to other computers on the LAN, through the network. However, in order to perform a successful network install, your computers must support booting from the network.

You should follow this guide if:
- you have to install Ubuntu on a machine with no CD-ROM drive but with an active network connection
- this machine provides the 'boot from network' option in its BIOS
- you have access to another network machine that's already running Ubuntu

INSTALL FROM NETWORK SERVER

First of all, you'll need to set-up the server, which is the machine already running Ubuntu. On this machine, you'll

install the FTP, HTTP and DHCP servers, which will allow the client machine to connect to the server and fetch the installation files and package repositories. To install these services, open a terminal and type:

CODE



$ sudo apt-get install tftpd-hpa apache2 dhcp3-server

Now, on the server machine, mount the installation CD, or the downloaded iso. Keep in mind that for network installations, you'll need to download the alternate ISO:

CODE



$ cd /where/you/downloaded/the/iso

$ sudo mkdir /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu

$ sudo mount -o loop ubuntu-7.04-alternate-i386.iso /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu

Make a symlink to the mounted ISO, from the Apache's root directory:

CODE



$ cd /var/www

$ sudo ln -s /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu/

If the server has a CD-ROM drive and you already have burned the Ubuntu alternate ISO installation CD, insert it into the server's CD-ROM drive and wait for it to get auto-mounted. It will probably get mounted under the /media/cdrom path, so we'll need to create symlinks for both FTP and HTTP servers:

CODE



$ sudo ln -s /media/cdrom /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu/

$ sudo ln -s /media/cdrom /var/www/ubuntu

Now, configure the DHCP daemon. Download the dhcp config file:

CODE



$ cd /etc/dhcp3

$ sudo mv dhcpd.conf dhcpd.conf.old

$ sudo wget http://download2.softpedia.com:8081/linux/dhcpd.conf

Open the dhcpd.conf file in a text editor and edit the following directives to match your network:

subnet and netmask - your network subnet and netmask
range - an IP from this range will be randomly assigned to the client machine
domain-name-server - enter here your DNS servers

Reload the dhcpd config file:

CODE



$ sudo /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server restart

At this point, your client machine is ready to boot the alternative installation ISO from the server. Simply reboot the client PC, open the BIOS configuration and under the BOOT menu, choose network as the first boot device. Save and exit. If everything worked out well, you should see the Ubuntu installation screen and boot prompt on the client machine.

INSTALL FROM HARD DISK

For this method, you'll need to already have a working Linux system on the machine on which you want to install the new Feisty system. This method provides a faster and more usable system because the installer is running from a hard drive rather than from a CD.

First of all, you need to use GParted to create a new primary partition and format it to ext3. For example, let's say that the partition is /dev/hda3. You will need to copy the ISO's contents over to the new partition:

CODE



$ mkdir /tmp/installcd

$ sudo mount -o loop /path/to/ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso /tmp/installcd

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/installer

$ sudo mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/installer

$ sudo cp -r /tmp/installcd/* /mnt/installer

$ sudo umount /tmp/installcd

Next, you'll need to edit your current Grub configuration file to boot the new partition. To do this, open the /boot/grub/menu.lst in a text editor and add the following lines:

CODE



title disk-installer

        root (hd0,2)

        kernel /casper/vmlinuz boot=casper root=/dev/ram ramdisk_size=1048576 rw

        initrd /casper/initrd.gz

NOTE: the root line tells Grub which partition contains the installer. If in your case, the partition you created is /dev/hda1, you'll need to edit that line to root (hd0,0). As you can see, the partition number becomes number -1 as Grub starts counting from 0.

Next, reboot and choose 'disk-instaler' from the grub boot menu.

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Alternative Installation Methods for Feisty - USER OPINIONS

Comment #1 by picopir8 on 2007-08-31, 07:06 GMT

reply to this comment

netkit_inetd or openbsd-inetd must also be installed on the linux server for this to work, otherwise the server will deny access to the client and it will not establish a tftp connection.

Comment #2 by ubuntuinst on 2007-10-25, 01:46 GMT

reply to this comment

Hi Mihai,
I tried installing UbuntuStduio 7.04 (ubuntustudio-7.04-alternate.iso) using your method but I was not able to. I am using Fedora 7 to install Ubuntu from hard disk. My configuration is as following:
2 hard disks
40 gb hard disk (shown as /dev/hdb) - winxp and fedora 7
80 gb hard disk (shown as /dev/hda) - ntfs partitions, i deleted the first one and made an primary partition, ext3 filesystem using Gparted
winxp is on /dev/hdb1
ferdora 7 is on /dev/hdb7
i am trying to install ubuntustudio on /dev/hda1
so i gave root (hd1, 0) as in my menu.lst it showed hd0 entries for winxp and fedora 7
and then i gave "install" in place of "casper" as this was the directory in iso which contained vmlinuz and initrd files.

However when I boot using the disk-installer option from grub menu it gives me this error

root (hd1, 0)
unrecognized device string

Could you please let me know if I have made any mistakes and how to correct them ?

Reply #2.1 by marius.nestor on 2007-10-25, 04:06 GMT

Hello ubuntuinst,

Sorry, but Mihai doesn't work for Softpedia anymore. I will try to help you with this problem.

Indeed, (hd1,0) will be correct if you have the installation files in the second hard drive, first partition (hdb1). Please check with fdisk the correct order of your partitions:

sudo fdisk -l

However, you can "play" a little on the GRUB menu, by modifying those numbers until it boots. Hit the 'e' key on the "root (hd1,0)" line, modify the numbers, hit enter to return to the GRUB menu and then hit the 'b' key to boot. If it gives an error, modify it again, try other combinations... (hd1,1) (hd1,2) (hd0,0) (hd0,1) ...etc

Comment #3 by ahmad2 on 2008-02-13, 10:17 GMT

reply to this comment

i think the proplem that you might be running the altrenate install cd

this was my case
you can change the lines

kernel /casper/vmlinuz boot=casper root=/dev/ram ramdisk_size=1048576 rw
initrd /casper/initrd.gz

with

kernel /install/vmlinuz boot=casper root=/dev/ram ramdisk_size=1048576 rw
initrd /install/initrd.gz

Reply #3.1 by marius.nestor on 2008-02-13, 10:28 GMT
Don't type "install".... just hit Enter and the CD will boot!

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