[sf-lug] Installing Linux with no bootable external drive (was: Re: Booting Lubuntu from USB

[Michael Shiloh]

On 01/13/2013 01:22 PM, Akkana Peck wrote:
> Michael Shiloh writes (responding to my recommendation of PLOP):
>> Thanks for the tip. This might be the perfect solution to installing
>> Linux on an old laptop that has no CDROM reader and can not boot
>> from USB device.
>
> Unfortunately, PLOP probably won't help if you don't already have
> Linux on the machine, because you have to find some way of getting
> a grub (or another bootloader) onto the machine's boot partition.
>
> I've usually found it easiest to remove the disk from the target
> machine, plug it into a running Linux machine using a USB adaptor,
> get a partition onto the disk using cp -ax or debootstrap, then
> fiddle around setting up a bootloader. There are probably less geeky
> ways you can point a distro installer at a USB disk and not have to
> set up the bootloader by hand.

Thanks for the reply. I was hoping the PLOP installer would run as 
Windows program and install grub or lilo on the running disk.

My plan B was to remove the hard disk as you said. Thanks for confirming 
this is still the best plan.

It's an old Sony Vaio, in case anyone cares.

M