Install from CD's w/out CD-Rom

[somethingwitty]

I'm trying to install some programs from CD's onto a system that does not come with a CD-ROM, and was wondering what the best (ideally free) way to access the content would be.

There is a second system nearby that has a drive, so I'm currently trying to brainstorm a way to share that. I'm not strong when it comes to networking, but I assume that sharing the resource would result in the program running on the PC with the actual drive (?)

A virtual cdrom option comes to mind as well - has anyone gotten that to work between 2 systems?

any other ideas?

For the moment, I'd like to avoid buying an external drive; will try to borrow one, but assume for now that's not an option.

thanks for any advice.

 

[shadowofthesun]

My suggestion would be to rip an ISO from the CD-ROM on the second computer, send it via LAN over to the computer that doesn't have a CD drive, and mount the image onto a virtual drive using software such as DAMEON tools.