ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric) Alpha 2 Released and Download links are included
Welcome to Oneiric Ocelot Alpha 2, which will in time become Ubuntu 11.10.
Pre-releases of Oneiric Ocelot are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.
Alpha 2 is the second in a series of milestone images that will be released throughout the Oneiric development cycle.
New packages showing up for the first time include:
- Linux Kernel 3.0-rc5
- gcc 4.6.1 compiler
- Firefox 5.0
- Thunderbird 5.0
- A Mesa 7.11 snapshot.
You can download Alpha 2 images here:
- http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/oneiric/alpha-2/ (Ubuntu, Ubuntu Server)
Additional images are also available at:
- http://uec-images.ubuntu.com/releases/oneiric/alpha-2/ (Ubuntu Server Cloud )
- http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/oneiric/alpha-2/ (Xubuntu)
- http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/oneiric/alpha-2/ (Edubuntu)
Alpha 2 includes a number of software updates that are ready for wider testing. This is quite an early set of images, so you should expect some bugs. For a more detailed description of the changes in the Alpha 2 release and the known bugs (which can save you the effort of reporting a duplicate bug, or help you find proven workarounds)
I test #ubuntu 11.10 oneiric in grub without burning a disk or installing with the following
Download the the ISO and place it in the /boot directory
Rename the iso to oneiric-desktop.iso
edit /etc/grub.d/40_custom and add:
menuentry “oneiric Desktop ISO” {
loopback loop /oneiric-desktop.iso
linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/oneiric-desktop.iso noeject noprompt splash —
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}
run update-grub from terminal
choose “oneiric Desktop ISO” from grub menu.
You can download the daily build and rename it oneiric-desktop.iso as often as you like or as the image changes to keep testing it out.
I hope this helps you boot the ISO from Grub.
Thanks for posting those directions on booting ISO images from grub. I’ll have to put that on my list of things to do when I get some free time.
Above code should be like this:
menuentry “oneiric Desktop ISO” {
set isofile=”/boot/oneiric-desktop.iso”
loopback loop (hd0,7)$isofile
linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile noprompt noeject
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}
Also change (hd0,7) to reflect disk where is your boot folder.
Full thread about booting from HDD is here – http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1549847
I prefer to do it my way without using the $iso set because I can upload my 40_custom master template to all my testing computers without having to edit the code to reflect whatever the hd0 is. As long as all my iso files are in the /boot directory, the Iso’s will load flawlessly.
So although your code does work and is perhaps a little geekier, my coding works with me testing multiple computers without having to update each testing computers grub code.
I use a similar code for other systems other than Ubuntu.
Thanks again for posting the grub menu entry thing. I was able to get mine working by using a combination of both your methods:
menuentry “Oneiric Desktop ISO” {
set isofile=”/boot/iso/oneiric-desktop-amd64.iso”
loopback loop $isofile
linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile noprompt noeject
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}
Note that I am using the amd-64 version of the ISO and I had issues because the filename is specified in more than 1 point in the config – hence why the variable was used.
However, I didn’t need to specify the device name (hd0,*). I don’t know if it matters, but I don’t have a separate /boot partition.
That being said, I can see this technique being really useful for creating a USB stick with a few different distributions on it – just download the relevant ISO file, copy/paste the menu entry, and specify the correct path to the file name.
Thanks again for both your posts. You helped me quite a bit.
Oh and I almost forgot… run update-grub (with root rights) to make the changes stick. 😉