F17 vs. Pentium 4

[Michal Jaegermann]

On Sun, Apr 01, 2012 at 10:49:56AM -0500, Michael Hennebry wrote:
> On Sun, 1 Apr 2012, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> 
> >On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 16:39:56 -0500,
> > Michael Hennebry <hennebry at web.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu> wrote:
> >>On Sat, 31 Mar 2012, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> >>Can they be booted without media?
> >
> >Possibly, but I am not sure how to do it. I usually use livecd-iso-to-disk
> >to put images on flash drives and boot from them.
> 
> That could be a problem.
> My machine won't boot with a USB drive attached and my burner does not work.
> Can one boot using a partition that is an iso image?
> I've mounted such partitions, but that is not the same as booting from one.

I did not try that with the current anaconda but I expect that this, or
something similar, should work.  At least Fedora 16 and earlier can be
booted to an installation image with the following grub2.cfg entry
(adjust all of that to a need and taste - this is only an example):

menuentry 'Anaconda' {
	load_video
	set gfxpayload=keep
	insmod gzio
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	linux  (hd0,msdos2)/boota/vmlinuz repo=hd:/dev/sda<X>:/<path_to_a_directory_with_an_iso_image>/
	initrd (hd0,msdos2)/boota/initrd.img
}

Obviously things like "/boota/" and "/<path_to_a_directory_with_an_iso_image>/"
are relative to corresponding disk devices and not to /. 'vmlinux' and
'initrd.img' refer to files you will find, for example, in 'pxeboot'
directory of your distro.

It is a good idea not to keep your iso image on a partition you are
going to clobber while installing. :-)  Making '/boota/' different from
'/boot/' and on a "set-aside" device could be handy, especially if you
are going to repeat an exercise above, but it is not strictly required.

   Michal