Possible to copy bootable CD to harddrive

[coolVariable]

Is there a way to copy a bootable CD to your harddrive and make the harddrive bootable?

I am asking, since I do not have the space for a full Ubuntu installation (2.2GB + 256MB Swap partition), but could easily spare the 750MB+ that the Live CD would be.
Also booting of the CD is agonizingly slow.

Any advice?
Ideally I would also like to add this as another item in the WinXP boot menu.

 

[Cerb]

I think you can do it, but it will still be slow. I do wonder, though, if you would not need a smaller *n*x to begin the booting so that it can mount an ISO or decompress contents. It may be simpler, but I'm pretty sure Ubuntu is crazy compressed on the CD, and may be difficult to directly use.

Doing so with the NT bootleader is annoying. Don't. Use GRUB. Using GRUB to get into Windows is easy. The other way around isn't, and can require a redo when you get a new kernel, and maybe new GRUB version.

My advice is to forget about Ubutnu. It is a pig, and that is not going to change any time soon. Find a distro that can be installed smaller (PCLOS is the most feature-filled I can think of that has a sub-1GB installation and uses APT), and use it, instead.

 

[M00T]

I found some guides on google. Search "grub boot iso"

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: Cerb
I think you can do it, but it will still be slow. I do wonder, though, if you would not need a smaller *n*x to begin the booting so that it can mount an ISO or decompress contents. It may be simpler, but I'm pretty sure Ubuntu is crazy compressed on the CD, and may be difficult to directly use.

Doing so with the NT bootleader is annoying. Don't. Use GRUB. Using GRUB to get into Windows is easy. The other way around isn't, and can require a redo when you get a new kernel, and maybe new GRUB version.

My advice is to forget about Ubutnu. It is a pig, and that is not going to change any time soon. Find a distro that can be installed smaller (PCLOS is the most feature-filled I can think of that has a sub-1GB installation and uses APT), and use it, instead.

I was thinking that it must be faster to run the LiveCD from the harddrive than from CD?

I really do not want to use GRUB and definitely do not want to touch the MBR (THIS IS MY WORK LAPTOP TOO!!!).

I tried installing ubuntu to an external USB harddrive but GRUB does not work at all ... when booting to the USB HD it simply sits there "GRUB _".
I was thinking that the menu.lst is screwed up but coudln't find a way to change it/play around with it from the LiveCD (something about only the "root" user having access to that file bullsh!t).

I guess my willingness to try linux is coming to a quick end.

Too bad ... it looked pretty decent.

 

[Robor]

Don't give up yet... What about a 2nd laptop drive? I've got 3 for my T42. I have the original from IBM with the restore partition and WinXP, my current Ubuntu install, and a 3rd drive to test out other stuff like Vista builds or other Linux distros.

 

[Cerb]

I was thinking that it must be faster to run the LiveCD from the harddrive than from CD?

Certainly, but it will still be slow.

I really do not want to use GRUB and definitely do not want to touch the MBR (THIS IS MY WORK LAPTOP TOO!!!).

Get a separate HDD and try it on your home PC. Using a USB drive is fine, and I know PCLOS is designed to be installed on one. However, you should try distros made to do that, because if not, chances are they will fail. GRUB can give you errors, and be obnoxious sometimes, but generally, it works well, and makes booting multiple OSes, especially Windows, easy. In fact, for booting Windows, most desktop dostros will automatically set it up for you.

Try other distros, and do it on something expendable. Ubuntu has popularity, but it's not the end-all-be-all of Linux desktop distros. PCLinuxOS, Zenwalk, Knoppix, Kanotix, Elive, Debian testing, Debian unstable, CentOS, Gentoo derivatives (note that I'm in the 'hate Gentoo' camp), OneBase, Lunar, SourceMage, Damn Small, Puppy (made for USB stick and non-invasive Windows partition installs, BTW), Yoper, Vector, Arch, Ark, SUSE, Fedora Core, SLAX, Frugalware, Foresight, Symphony OS, Freespire, Xandros, and more, all have their strong and weak points.

If you do not have a separate PC to use, then wait until you do. A PIII w/ 440 chipset or newer will be great (able to handle big desktop distros w/ 512MB or more, and even fast enough to compile the occasional application). One thing that is a must for trying Linux distros is a second PC with an internet connection. Just two days ago I screwed up w/ cfdisk and got myself unbootable. I managed to recover it, and now have Windows and Debian installed and updated (still restoring app preferences as I find them), and will get Source Mage done tonight (X, GTK, E17, and KDE, of course, will take all of tomorrow ). If I did not have access to Google on a separate PC, I would not be posting this right now in Windows, much less have gotten my data recovered and Windows 2000 installed on a big partition. The second PC having a CD burner in it is a plus, too.

I guess my willingness to try linux is coming to a quick end.

Too bad ... it looked pretty decent.

If you don't have a stack of 20+ CDRs of distros you didn't like, you haven't even touched what is available, much less scratched the surface . FOSS is cool, but you've got to get used to it being a totally different thing than the monolith+clique cultures surrounding OS X and Windows. Don't give up, just give it more time and more discs.

 

[postmortemIA]

yes, you can isntall microsoft virtual pc and boot using iso image of live cd.

 

[ghidu]

I don't know if someone else already said it and it's been a while since I "played" with linux but I think you can simply use dd to copy the image; it should work.

 

[ktwebb]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
yes, you can isntall microsoft virtual pc and boot using iso image of live cd.

This would be the way to go IF you have enough memory to allocate and make the OS run at an acceptable pace. I prefer VMWare but Virtual PC from Microsoft is, I believe, now free. And it's s serviceable virtualization app.