Guest krak3r Posted March 14, 2006 Report Share Posted March 14, 2006 I have a laptop the my cdrom is dead and I really want to reinstall. Is there any way to configure a network install on ubuntu, kubuntu, or even mandriva. no Red Hat! i dont want to buy a cdrom so any info would be helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 14, 2006 Report Share Posted March 14, 2006 If you have a floppy disk drive, you can make a boot floppy using an image downloadable from an ftp mirror. That way you can boot from the floppy gain network connectivity and install from the internet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
superpenguin79 Posted March 16, 2006 Report Share Posted March 16, 2006 Just out of curiousity, what image would one need to do something of this sort? I am thinking about installing Mandriva on a 2nd machine now which is very old (Win 98 is the current image and the hardware is probably just as old) just to play with caus I would like to try it before I re-image my main machine. :D If you guys have gotten it to work, could you please let me know details? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 16, 2006 Report Share Posted March 16, 2006 Without checking, but I think the one marked network.img should do the trick. You can write this to a disk using rawrite under windows, or using dd under linux, I think: dd if=network.img of=/dev/fd0 and that should create your disk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
superpenguin79 Posted March 16, 2006 Report Share Posted March 16, 2006 (edited) yep, got hold of a boot.img and ramdisk.img file to make my boot disk so far. I got hold of the bamboo ones caus I have an older machine, or would this not matter with Linux? I think I got the part down using rawrite to make the floppy, but will this allow me to go GUI or text base in order to get my lan up and running to get on the ftp server? or am I jumping too far ahead? hehe Also, if I understand correctly the network.img file you are mentioning will launch the setup for mandrake correct? Sorry for all the questions, but I have been a Win user for too long... I can pick up most things pretty quick, but for some reason these img files are baffling on a first time install... maybe I should just download a cd image and see if I have an extra drive laying around that I could pop into that machine to install with. The rom drive is broken on that machine, which is why I am looking at installing via FTP also.. :) thanks Edited March 16, 2006 by superpenguin79 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 17, 2006 Report Share Posted March 17, 2006 First, you'll boot the floppy, then it'll ask you to choose to install from an ftp mirror. Once you've selected this, the install would carry on in the same way as a CD/DVD, with a gui installer, etc. I've only used the CDROM image, and booted from CD to do it. This was fine. It'll work in much the same was as the boot floppy I would have thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
superpenguin79 Posted March 17, 2006 Report Share Posted March 17, 2006 ahh, so I don't have to point it to a specific mirror and my network card should auto-become available for usage and surfing to the mirror? That sounds too easy man.. :D I will try it with an old machine that I have and see how it goes this weekend. If it makes me point to an FTP mirror, do I just point it to the iso image for the install that I want to work with, or is there another file that starts the setup/install sort of like an exe file in Windows? Thanks for the help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 17, 2006 Report Share Posted March 17, 2006 The image files know that you want to install 2006, or whatever CD/DVD/FTP tree you got it from. You can get disk images for LE2005 as well, so make sure you get the one for the distro you want installing. Then after booting the floppy you choose the ftp option, and choose a mirror, and then the installer starts and thats it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
superpenguin79 Posted March 17, 2006 Report Share Posted March 17, 2006 gotcha, more simple than I was thinking... :D I will have to go find a mirror with the img files for a boot floppy for 2006 today I suppose then caus I have no clue what mirror the other img files came from originally.. lol Atleast I know that I can download those on a pc instead of a 2gb dl for the iso image to my mac and having it error out..... :D thanks for the help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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