Installing Linux from USB CD is posible?

[ismei]

Hi! Thanks to anyone that could be reading this and help me with my little problem... I'm one of this guys that have a computer without floppy either IDE CD. I have a bootable USB CD from wich I can install Windows XP... and I would like to install too Linux. I would like if posible Red Hat. Does anyone have installed Linux from a USB CD??? What distibution??? Thanks a lot!!!!

[mrBen]

If you can boot windows from it, then you can probably boot Linux from it too. Usually the problem is that USB is available at a BIOS level, but if you can boot WinXP then you should also be able to boot a Linux-based CD too.

Most modern Linux distros will support USB out-of-the-box.

[ismei]

Hi! I can boot from CD, but after this, RED HAT 7.3 doesn't recognizes me the CD when passes to the second stage. I tried with all SCSI drivers but fails! Any sugestions??? I'm now trying with downloading ISO file for a Hard Drive instalation! My question was if any of RED HAT.. 8 or 9 support a full instalation from USB CD. Another Question: RED HAT 8 and upper need the ISO too or I can specify path as in versions before?

[JamminJoeyB]

I'm not sure if this applies, but it's a thought. To read any USB device the linux kernel which is running durring install would need to have the usb modules loaded.

So when you get past the initial setup portion and it's looking for a CDROM it can't find one because it's USB.

You may have to pass some parameters to the kernel on boot to get all the modules loaded so the kernel can find your USB CDROM.

I have a standard ide setup so I'm guessing here.

[mrBen]

RedHat 7.3 is decidedly old, and I doubt would support USB out-of-the-box even from an IDE CD-ROM drive.

Get the very latest version. Most of them, if they don't already support it, will give some sort of indication of boot parameters needed to get USB running for those people using USB keyboards and rodents. However, I suspect that RedHat 9/Fedora will have USB up and running without too much trouble.

[ismei]

Ok! I will download new version. 'Cause to success with RH7.3 I had to download tree RH7 ISOs (about 650 Mb each) to HardDisk and after this I could install choosing Install from HD. Of course this is a worry 'cause I must install XP before to can download it! Hope to can Install directly from my USB CD this new RH version. Thanks a lot!