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need help Installing Linux from an USB CD-ROM

post #1 of 16
11/19/04 at 9:34pm
Thread Starter 
hi, i have a Toshiba Portege 34910CT laptop which is so thin, it has no build in cd-rom or floppy drive.

now, i have a usb cd-burner, and a usb floppy drive that the laptop can boot from, but the boot can't reconize the usb cd-rom, i can install the driver from boot a floppy. before i can install win98 by type setup.exe or XP by typing winnt in i386. no comes to Linux which i don't know anything of.

can i type something in dos so i can boot or install linux from the usb cd-rom.

any one has idea?
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post #2 of 16
11/19/04 at 10:50pm
Yeah you can build boot floppies for most distros, or atleast you used to be able to. I know on the Red Hat disk ther was a folder that had the images on it. What distro are you interested in? The website of the distro should be able to guide you on that.
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post #3 of 16
11/20/04 at 12:08am
The biggest thing is to make sure that the image you use has support for USB devices. Don't know the current state of install images, but that used to be a pretty rare thing in the past.

Regards,

zakaluka2.
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post #4 of 16
11/21/04 at 3:14am
Thread Starter 
ok, i'm very new to laptop and Linux.

what's a distros?

and i downloaded Suse Linux 9.1 Pro and a personal version, and Red Hat 9 Personal.

they all on a CD now, what i just need a way to boot them from the USB-cd-burner
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post #5 of 16
11/21/04 at 3:14pm
Distro = distribution. This is how different "brands" of Linux are distinguished.
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post #6 of 16
11/21/04 at 9:24pm
Thread Starter 
so what should i do??
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post #7 of 16
11/22/04 at 3:47am
Well, look either on the CD or on distro-specific support forums for a floppy image w/USB support. Boot from your USB floppy drive using that image. Once done, you should be able to see the USB CD-ROM drive. Go on over and start the installation process (if the floppy doesn't automatically start it for you).

Regards,

zakaluka2.
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post #8 of 16
12/3/04 at 10:28pm
Thread Starter 
ok, now i just find out that the USB won't work in dos, cuz there is only 1 USB on my laptop and buying a USB hud won't work, it just won't work don't know why.
and now, i got this external DVD/CD-rom, with PCcard connection which i can use under MS-DOS.

So is there any command i can type in DOS to start the installation???
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post #9 of 16
12/4/04 at 3:33pm
DOS? What are you doing in DOS? I think you misunderstood; you should get a distro-specific boot floppy, not a DOS floppy.

Mikhail
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post #10 of 16
12/5/04 at 4:34am
I suggest you take a look at:

http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache...ppy+boot&hl=en (wiki site down, link to google cache).

The point is, before you start installing linux and using it, you should start small. Plus, Knoppix has excellent support for various media, especially CD drives. In order to download and burn Knoppix, you can go to www.knoppix.net. From what I can tell, you still have windows installed on your laptop, so that should be easy. This page tells you how to create a linux (knoppix-specific) boot floppy, boot with it, and, hopefully, get linux running on your system. Once Knoppix comes up, you can install it to the hard-drive from within the GUI, thus eliminating the need for all these hassles.

Some background: Knoppix is a LiveCD distribution, ie, it runs completely from the CD, and does NOT touch the hard drive unless told to do so. Thus, you get linux running without installing it first. Once you have Knoppix up and running (even if you don't want to install Knoppix or Debian on your hard drive), you know that the USB CD-ROM drive is available from linux and that you just need to find the proper boot floppy image for your desired distro.

EDIT: if the link I provided above doesn't come up, go to www.google.com and search for http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/BootFloppyHowTo. Google should have a link to a cached version of the page.

Regards and good luck,

zakaluka2.
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post #11 of 16
12/5/04 at 1:54pm
Thread Starter 
i am currently using 56K and i have a limit of donwloading huge files.
right now i have Suse 9.0 Personal on 1 CD
RedHat 9.2 Pro, on 3 CDs,

the reason why i need to go to DOS because i have to load the DOS driver for my PCCard Cd-rom, from there, i can access the CD-ROM.
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post #12 of 16
12/5/04 at 2:27pm
You'll need to find a linux driver for the PC Card CD-ROM. DOS cannot install Linux, as it lacks the the filesystem and kernel. You'd be able to copy stuff to the hard drive and do a sort of a manual installation, but then you'd have to install the bootloader and other bootstrap suchthings by hand (pain).

Load up and look in the SuSE Personal CD within Windows or DOS. Explore the dosutils folder. This folder can be found on the CD of almost any distro since a lot of people run dos-based OSes (Windows, Netware). Also, look in the \boot\README.DOS file. It gives detailed instructions how to make the Linux boot CD. You should be able to get a driver for the PC Card device from its manufacturer's website. If they don't have one posted, email them about it. If they tell you f*** off, google for drivers.
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post #13 of 16
12/5/04 at 3:10pm
Thread Starter 
this stupid Freecom doesn't have drive for linux.....
oh my god, setting up linux is much more harder than i think....
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post #14 of 16
12/5/04 at 3:25pm
I dont think installing Windows off a USB CDROM would be a walk in the park either
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post #15 of 16
12/12/04 at 2:11pm
Thread Starter 
but it works, installing windows is much easier than Linux
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post #16 of 16
12/12/04 at 2:13pm
Yes, but we're talking about the external CDROM here. In either case, we need to find a bootable floppy with support for the CDROM drive. Once there, it doesnt matter if we're installing Windows or Linux.
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