Installing via Network without a CD (was Re: Disk Druid - Fedora flame #1)

[Aleksandar Milivojevic]

Timothy Murphy wrote:
> But how do I transfer anything to the hard disk without removing the CD?

Jumping late into this thread, so this my not apply to your case.

Burn either boot or rescue CD (my preference is rescue).  Boot from it. 
  On boot prompt (on the first fedora splash screen, as soon as CD 
boots), type "linux askmethod" and press <enter> key.  As soon as it 
asks you for language, you can remove CD drive.  You are not going to 
need it anymore (haven't actaully tested it all the to the end, but I 
got to disk partitioning part).  Answer the language question, than 
keyboard type, and from where do you want to install.  If you want to 
install from network, choose one of FTP, HTTP, and/or NFS, depending on 
where is your install server.  It'll ask you to configure IP address of 
your network interface and so on.  If you don't have local install 
server, choose HTTP (or FTP) and point it to one of Fedora mirrors. 
When it asks you, for directory enter path to directory that contains 
top of Fedora tree, for example /pub/fedora/linux/core/3/i386/os if 
using download.fedora.redhat.com.

If you plug network card after Anaconda started, there's possibility 
you'll need to load drivers for it manually.  Hmmm...  not sure, but 
there might be option you can pass on boot prompt to force loading of a 
driver even if device isn't present at boot time.  Maybe somebody else 
can jump-in here.

If your laptop (I guess it is laptop, you mentioned PCMCIA stuff) 
supports booting off USB, instead of burning rescue CD, you can transfer 
diskboot.img from images directory onto USB memory device (USB memory 
key, or some kind of memory card such as compact flash if you have USB 
reader for it) and boot from it.  You do not need CD.  The procedure 
from there on is the same as when booting off rescue CD.  I've tried 
this out several times, and it works like charm.  And you bypassed all 
those problems with removing CD drive.  If your laptop supports booting 
off USB, and you don't have USB memory key, consider borrowing or buying 
it.  Buying is investment all right, but the smaller ones are kind of 
cheap these days, and you'll probably have use for it even after the 
install is done.

If it doesn't support booting off USB, check if there are any BIOS 
updates for your laptop.  There is (very small and unlikely, but there's 
still hope) possibility that booting off USB was added at some point in 
time.

If your laptop can boot directly off network using PXE, there's also 
pxeboot directory with kernel and initrd images that can be placed on 
boot server.  I never attempted this kind of booting, and therefore 
can't help you how to setup boot server (maybe somebody else from the 
list could, or maybe there's some kind of HOWTO, I'd be also interested 
in trying it out).

So, you have several options listed above.  Go and play ;-)

-- 
Aleksandar Milivojevic <amilivojevic at pbl.ca>    Pollard Banknote Limited
Systems Administrator                           1499 Buffalo Place
Tel: (204) 474-2323 ext 276                     Winnipeg, MB  R3T 1L7