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UBUNTU TIPS AND TRICKS

Alternative Installation Methods for Hardy

- How to install Ubuntu Hardy over network, from a USB stick or from a hard disk!

By: Marius Nestor, Linux Editor

Enlarge picture

Ubuntu can be installed using other methods as well, which might prove handy in some circumstances. For example, let's say you want

to install Ubuntu on a computer that has no CD/DVD-ROM drive. What do you do? Well, you can install Ubuntu from another machine on the network (if there is one) that will provide the installation files to other computers on the LAN, or you can install it from the hard drive, if there is no LAN. For the latter solution, you will need an active Internet connection to download the Ubuntu ISO image or you can use an external hard drive as well. But the best of all is to have a Live USB Stick with Ubuntu OS!

You will need...

• Ubuntu 8.04 Alternate CD
• Ubuntu 8.04 Destktop CD
• an 1 GB USB Stick
• an active network connection
• 'boot from network' and 'boot from USB' options in the BIOS of the computer you want to install Ubuntu
• access to another network machine that is already running Ubuntu

Install Ubuntu from a USB Stick

This is a newly adopted method and the most used these days, and that's just because it's the fastest, easy to use and portable way to install Ubuntu on a computer. It will require at least 1 GB USB Stick. You don't need to pre-format the USB disk as this will be done automatically by the software we'll use for this method. Just make sure you don't have any important data on that USB disk, as it will be erased! This method will bake a Live USB Ubuntu 8.04 disk. OK, so let's get down to business!

Go to System -> Administration -> Software Sources, click on the second tab (Third-Party Software), click the 'Add' button and paste the following line:

CODE



deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/probono/ubuntu hardy main

Click the 'Add Source' button and then click on the 'Close' button. It will ask if you want to reload the information about the available software.

Now, open a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and paste the following command:

CODE



sudo apt-get -y install liveusb

When the installation is over, insert the USB Stick on your PC and the Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop CD on your CD/DVD-ROM drive.

Go to System -> Administration -> Install Live USB...

If you've inserted the USB Stick and the Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop CD, you will see this nice window...

Click on the "Options" link and then check the "Download and integrate Adobe Flash Player" box. Then click the 'Execute' button and you will be asked if you want to install Ubuntu on that USB disk and if you are sure that you want to erase all the data and partitions on it. If you are sure, click 'Yes' on both questions...

The data will be copied from the Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop CD to the USB Stick...

After about 5-6 minutes, the whole process will be over and you can remove the USB Stick!

That's it! You can go now to your friends, with the USB disk, and install Ubuntu on their machines. You can also run and use Ubuntu (browse the web, talk to friends, do different stuff) directly from the Live USB Stick! Just remember to boot from USB-HDD (your computer must have this option on BIOS)!

Method 2 - Install Ubuntu from a network (LAN) server

For this task, you will need another computer that has Ubuntu installed (and working) and it's connected to the machine you want to install Ubuntu, through a LAN (Local Area Network). We will call that PC that already has Ubuntu, "Server", and the PC on which you want to install Ubuntu, "Client". On the Server, you will install a FTP server, an HTTP server and a DHCP server, which will allow the Client machine to connect to the server and fetch the installation files and package repositories. To install these servers, open a Terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and type:

CODE



sudo apt-get install tftpd-hpa apache2 dhcp3-server openbsd-inetd

Now, mount the Ubuntu 8.04 Alternative ISO image with the following commands:

CODE



cd /path-to-the-iso-image

sudo mkdir /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu

sudo mount -o loop ubuntu-8.04-alternate-i386.iso /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu (for an i386 PC)



or



sudo mount -o loop ubuntu-8.04-alternate-amd64.iso /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu (for an AMD 64/Intel 64 PC)

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/DVD-ROM drive and you already have burned the Ubuntu 8.04 Alternate ISO installation CD, insert it in the optical drive and wait for it to get auto-mounted. It will probably get mounted under the /media/cdrom path, so we will need to create symlinks for both FTP and HTTP servers. Copy and paste the following commands in a Terminal window:

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 gedit dhcpd.conf

Copy and paste the following lines into the dhcpd.conf file:

CODE



ping-check = 1;

filename = "ubuntu/install/netboot/pxelinux.0";

subnet 192.168.1.0  

netmask 255.255.255.0 {

range 192.168.1.10 192.168.1.254;

}

Edit the following directives to match your network:

• REPLACE the subnet with your network subnet
• REPLACE the netmask with your network netmask
• REPLACE the range of IPs with the corresponding IP addresses from your network. An IP address from this range will be randomly assigned to the Client computer.

Restart the DHCP server with the following command:

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. Power up the Client PC, enter the BIOS, search for the 'Boot from network' options (under the BOOT menu) and put it as the first boot device. Save and exit. If everything worked out well, you should see the Ubuntu installation screen and boot prompt. Install Ubuntu!

Method 3 - Install from a hard drive

Use this method for a faster system installation and if you don't have a CD/DVD-ROM drive, you will need to have a working Ubuntu system on the computer on which you want to install the new Hardy OS.

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/sda3 (for a SATA drive) or /dev/hda3 (for a IDE drive). You will need to copy the ISO's contents over to the new partition. Open a Terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and type:

CODE



mkdir /tmp/installcd

sudo mount -o loop /path-to/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso /tmp/installcd (for an i386 PC)



or



sudo mount -o loop /path/to/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-amd64.iso /tmp/installcd (for an AMD 64/Intel 64 PC)

sudo mkdir /mnt/installer

sudo mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/installer (for the SATA drive)



or



sudo mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/installer (for the IDE drive)

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

cd ~/

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 with:

CODE



sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

...and add the following lines at the end of the file:

CODE



title Ubuntu Hard Drive Installation

        root (hd0,2)

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

        initrd /casper/initrd.gz

IMPORTANT: 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). Grub starts counting your partition from 0, therefore the fourth partition will be (hd0,3) and so on. If you have a secondary hard disk, you will have to modify the first number from 0 to 1 (e.g. hd1,0 - for the second hard disk, first partition).

Save the file, close the text editor, reboot the computer and choose 'Ubuntu Hard Drive Installation' from the GRUB boot menu and install Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron!

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Alternative Installation Methods for Hardy - USER OPINIONS

Comment #1 by Rick White on 2008-06-16, 17:49 GMT	reply to this comment
Thanks so much for the guide! I had to tweak it a little to get it to work. I finally got it to boot the image over the network, but it didn't want to actually install from the image at that point. But, since it was loaded into RAM I just popped the machine over to my Internet-connected network and it just downloaded all the necessary files from the webserver.

Comment #2 by Krishnasn on 2008-06-24, 08:22 GMT	reply to this comment
Easy to follow instruction. To install liveusb instead of command line I used synaptic package Manager. Thanks.

Comment #3 by Liberator on 2008-07-13, 23:40 GMT	reply to this comment
This method is broken under Hardy (the alternative install CD image is broken). Technical details of the bug are at http://www.mail-archive.com/ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com/msg905078.html. If you need to do a netboot install then you must use an earlier distribution and then upgrade to Hardy once the earlier distribution is installed.

Comment #4 by Oriol on 2008-07-19, 07:35 GMT	reply to this comment
I tried to install Hardy from usb. The live distribution runs ok but the installation stops at 78% with read write errors. Could somebody install hardy from usb without problems?

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