Slightly unusual test install case for f14 beta on a laptop

mike cloaked mike.cloaked at gmail.com
Fri Oct 1 20:22:29 UTC 2010


I have an old Amilo D68 laptop that cannot boot from a usbkey and I
wanted to run a test install of the beta for f14 but without having to
burn a physical DVD..... so I started poking around for a way to do it
from a usbkey.

Since the BIOS does not allow booting from a usb device I found that
there is a project that has a simple means to get a bootable usbkey to
boot - PLOP.  I downloaded the package from their website, and made a
grub stanza entry to boot the plpbt.bin file placed in the /boot
directory - this then gives a menu that offers to boot from a usb
device. OK part  success. (but not supported by Fedora!)

I then used the dd method to copy the DVD iso for f14 to the key  on
another machine.... took ages but it did complete. So now the media is
ready I hoped!

Booted the laptop with the new usbkey in place, got the PLOP file to
boot and when selecting the usb boot absolutely nothing happened - I
tried several times but the key simply would not respond. (Initial
thought was the PLOP was not working)

OK different tack - a method I have used before when I was stuck with
the fedora method and partly frowned upon in Fedora circles, and at
the very least unsupported - resort to fallback position using
unetbootin

unetbootin is a yum installable package so I used it on an f12 machine
to prepare the same usbkey (after reformatting it with gparted, and
placing a single fat32 partition with a boot flag on it)

So I used unetbootin to write the netinst.iso file to the key for f14
beta.  Just for good measure I then copied the DVD iso file to the key
as well in the hope that I would be able to get a full DVD iso install
off the key.

So back to booting the PLOP on the laptop with the newly written
usbkey in its slot - PLOP boots, and upon selecting usb, then
unetbootin boots up nicely, and the default install finds the
netinst.iso boot....

Selecting the key as the source and deselecting the updates.img file
in the install menu allows the full DVD iso to be used for the install
- everything is normal, but a caution is to watch that you do not
allow the install to put grub on the mbr of the key, but switch drives
and put grub on the MBR of the HD in the laptop - now the install
appears to proceed normally (it is still running!)

Could I have attempted to boot the DVD iso by trying to write that
using unetbootin directly to the key - I don't know but I do know that
in the past for f12 that failed me miserably where booting netinst.iso
and referring to the full DVD iso did work for me in the past!

However my point is that doing a full DVD iso install should not need
to involve this rigmarole - and it should be made a lot easier for
users to install from a usbkey for the full DVD install in an easy
way.  I have certainly had the dd method fail in the past for f12 on a
completely different machine.

Why did the dd method fail?  I don't know but I have not had much
success with that.

Then there is livecd-iso-to-disk - well what needs to be answered from
the docs and made really clear is does this work for livecd isos only?
 netinst.iso?  DVD iso?  I usually do NOT want to install from a
livecd for many reasons, like many packages are simply not there in
the livecd - like the ssh server as a simple example.

I think that this method of install is not as well documented as it
should be - and there appears to be residual bugs that need resolving
(like for the dd method I mention above) - there also needs to be
clear and separate instructions on how to boot from a usbkey for a
live distribution and separately for the full DVD install iso.... they
are different cases.

I would value comments on this?

-- 
mike c


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