Comments on: Install Ubuntu from a flash disk

By: Kyle

Kyle — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:22:04 +0000

Not a problem at all, I’m glad I could help. If you run into any other issues (related or not) let me know and I’ll do my best.

By: Kasper

Kasper — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:58:17 +0000

This was ecactly what I needed…

Now I have it working - I suspect that is was all the way back in the partitioning, that something went wrong… Not sure - But thanx for the great effort you put into this Kyle - I really appriciate it.. Didn’t know that people like you was still to be found.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:08:58 +0000

I just ran through this without problems. Can I suggest starting over from scratch and seeing where you make it?

kyle@min:~/Desktop/ubuntu $ wget http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/sarge/main/installer-i386/current//images/hd-media/boot.img.gz
kyle@min:~/Desktop/ubuntu # wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/edgy/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/mini.iso
kyle@min:~/Desktop/ubuntu $ ls -al
total 16736
drwxr-xr-x 2 kyle kyle 4096 2007-12-04 00:45 .
drwxrwxr-x 8 kyle kyle 4096 2007-12-04 00:33 ..
-rw-r–r– 1 kyle kyle 8248928 2006-08-04 15:01 boot.img.gz
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 8849408 2006-10-20 20:42 mini.iso
root@min:~/Desktop/ubuntu # mkdir /mnt/ubuntu
root@min:~/Desktop/ubuntu # mkdir /mnt/bootdisk
root@min:/media # df -h
/dev/sde1 63M 44M 20M 70% /media/disk
root@min:/media # umount /media/disk
root@min:~/Desktop/ubuntu # zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/sde

gzip: stdout: No space left on device
root@min:~/Desktop/ubuntu # mount /dev/sde /mnt/bootdisk
root@min:~/Desktop/ubuntu # mount -t iso9660 -o loop,ro mini.iso /mnt/ubuntu
root@min:~/Desktop/ubuntu # cd /mnt/bootdisk
root@min:/mnt/bootdisk # ls
disk.lbl f2.txt f5.txt f8.txt initrd.gz linux syslinux.cfg
f10.txt f3.txt f6.txt f9.txt initrd.list linux26 syslinux.txt
f1.txt f4.txt f7.txt initrd26.gz ldlinux.sys splash.rle
root@min:/mnt/bootdisk # rm linux26 initrd26.gz syslinux.cfg
root@min:/mnt/bootdisk # cp /mnt/ubuntu/* .
root@min:/mnt/bootdisk # mv isolinux.cfg syslinux.cfg

By: Kyle

Kyle — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:14:32 +0000

I’ll bring a flash drive home from work today and check this out for you. (I know, I’m one of the five people in the developed world without one.)

By: Kasper

Kasper — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:46:42 +0000

I used the CLI..
It just seems that the boot.img.gz takes up all the space..

By: Kyle

Kyle — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 03:27:46 +0000

Out of curiosity, when you deleted the files, did you use the graphical interface, or did you delete them via the command line?

By: Kasper

Kasper — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 07:44:39 +0000

Whoa - that’s a fast reply - thanx..
Unfortunetly I have no files in trash - but when I did the zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/sda
- it deleted all files, so there ought to be plenty space..
Before following your recipe, I partitioned and formatted the stick..
When I look under properties for the /media/ubuntu inst - which is my stick it says that it has 7,6MB on it - which seems resonable, but it also states, that there is 0 byte free space..
BTW here the time is 08:39 am :-)

By: Kyle

Kyle — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 07:37:40 +0000

This may sound like a stupid question, but do you have free space on the usb-stick? If you’ve deleted something, but not emptied the trash, you’ve likely got files sitting in .Trash taking up space.

(Sorry I don’t have a bit more helpful response at the moment, it’s rather late and that’s the first thing that came to mind.)

By: Kasper

Kasper — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 07:22:47 +0000

That seems to work, thank you very much…
Though I now get to two new problems..
There are no files named initrd26.gz or linux26 - but I have deleted the files linuz and initrd.gz.
When I try to graphically copy the files from the iso - it says that there isn’t enough space - on my 1gb usb-stick..
What to do?

By: Kyle

Kyle — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 04:30:28 +0000

You’ll have to create this mountpoint on the machine you’re working on.

mkdir /mnt/ubuntu