Install Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Edubuntu/Xubuntu without CDROM Drive

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If You have a old machine without CD-ROM and you want to use that as your ubuntu desktop You can use any one of the following solutions to install ubuntu.

Solution1

Before Starting We need to remember the following Important Points

***THIS INSTALLATION METHOD WILL ONLY WORK WITH THE ALTERNATIVE ISO FILES OF UBUNTU/KUBUNTU/XUBUNTU***

1)Download the Alternative Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Edubuntu/Xubuntu .iso file from here and run an md5 check on it.

2)If you are running Windows you can download the md5 sum program from here once you have this drag your .iso file onto the program (md5sums.exe) and it will spit out a long string of characters and numbers. Make sure the string it spits out matches the published md5 sum.
md5 sums look like the following

549ef19097b10ac9237c08f6dc6084c6 ubuntu-6.10-alternate-i386.iso

3)Before installing Ubuntu you will need to partition your drive. In essence you will need to boot from another media either a floppy, 2nd drive or USB key and run some type of partition software. Create one new partition for the Ubuntu installation, one to hold the .iso file & additional boot files (say 700megs). You might need to resize your existing OS to make space for the above 2 partitions.

4)Now you need to Install grub onto either a floppy or hard drive and create a similar entry in your menu.lst file

title Install Ubuntu
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz vga=normal ramdisk_size=14972 root=/dev/rd/0 rw ---
initrd /boot/initrd.gz

**(hd0,2) refers to the 1st hard drive ‘hd0' and the 3rd partition ‘2'.

The counting of partitions and hard drives starts at zero.

Change (hd0,2) to match the drive and partition of your .iso file.

e.g (hd1,3) Refers to drive 2 and partition 4.

5)Download the vmlinuz & initrd.gz files from here

6)First you need to copy the .iso, vmlinuz & initrd.gz files onto the newly created partition from step (2) in a /boot directory.Make sure all other Ubuntu/Kbuntu/Xubuntu .iso files have been renamed to .iso.somethingelse, this will prevent the installer from picking up the wrong .iso file.

7)Now you need to Boot your machine machine from the hard disk or floppy that has grub installed, you should see a menu that contains ‘Install Ubuntu’. Select ‘Install Ubuntu’ and press enter.

8)Next run through the installation until it fails to find the .iso file. Then change to terminal 2 with (Ctrl-Alt-F2). Hit enter to activate this console.

9)Type the below commands in terminal 2

mkdir -p /dev/loop
ln /dev/loop0 /dev/loop/0

10) Change back to terminal 1 (Ctrl-Alt-F1), scan again and the ISO will be detected.

The install should be working now on your PC

You can refer this from here

Solution2

This method will work all Ubuntu Versions

First thing you need to create a boot floppy with etherboot. You need to click here and located your network card in the dropdown. You need to make sure the exact PCI ID numbers of your network card which will help you in finding the correct driver. If you don't know, try to locate the card by name in the list. Opt for a bootable floppy image, download it and then write it to a floppy per the instructions on the site.

You then need to configure a tftp server on another machine on the same network. The server should be configured to serve the contents of /install/netboot directory of the Ubuntu CD as root directory. This way, when the computer you are about to install asks for the file pxelinux.0, the pxelinux.0 in /install/netboot on the Ubuntu CD will be served.

You can install the atftpd package, mount your ubuntu CD on /media/cdrom and added /media/cdrom/install/netboot as commandline argument to in.tftpd in /etc/inetd.conf. Don't forget to restart inetd after doing this.

Now you need to configure DHCP server as follows

host tobeinstalled {
hardware ethernet 00:80:C8:F8:51:25;
next-server myinstallhost;
filename "pxelinux.0";
allow bootp;
allow booting;
}

This will make dhcpd tell the client that it should ask myinstallhost for pxelinux.0 at boot.

Inserted the floppy in the computer to be installed and rebooted it. It downloaded a bunch of files via TFTP, and then gave me the regular Ubuntu install prompt.

You can check this from here

Solution 3

This is very simple guide to install ubuntu without CDROM from your windows using wubi.Check this simple installation guide.

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32 Responses

  1. Frans Duijndam says:

    I am trying to install UBUNTU on a netbook (with no cd rom and no usb boot) using this guide.

    I followed everything in the guide.

    I formatted the HDD like this:
    3 partitions,
    C: 20 gigabyte
    D: 15 gigabyte
    E: 3 gigabyte (containing .iso and other files)

    When i try and install it says:
    Error 20: no such partition.

    What am i doing wrong?

    Greetings,

    Frans.

  2. Frans Duijndam says:

    I fixed it!!
    Only now it says Error 15: File not Found
    I think this is because i used an different UNBUNTU version.

    I used a different because the link to;
    ‘the Alternative Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Edubuntu/Xubuntu .iso file’
    is down.

    Am i right?

    if Yes, could u provide a working link PLZ?

    Greetz,

    Frans.

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