How To: Boot An ISO With GRUB2 (The Easy Way!)

[oobetimer]

An excellent tutorial ..

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/02/how-to-b ... y-way.html

[sagirfahmid3]

This isn't new
It's a frugal install basically. It's not "really" installed as a true OS; it's more similar to a live CD or DVD.

[viking777]

Unetbootin frugal installs are fine and they definitely work, but surely there can be no easier way to run an iso than this?

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kvm -m 800 -cdrom /home/mint/archbang-2012.04.30-i686.iso

That is the command I used for the last iso I booted.

Of course you have to install qemu-kvm first, but as that is in the package manager it is not a hard job (neither is it a 'heavy' package even including dependencies) and the other thing you have to know is where you have saved the iso file, but if you don't know that then one wonders why you are bothering with this .

The '-m 800' part is the amount of memory in megabytes that you want to allocate to the virtual machine. Slightly less than half the installed memory is what I use as a rule of thumb (because you have to run the host at the same time).

I don't think there is anything easier for a quick look at a distro, it will give you enough of a feel for it to understand if you like it or not, but it won't tell you how well it will run after install, no virtualisation does that, and probably never will.

[brunaux]

An excellent tutorial ..

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/02/how-to-b ... y-way.html

the tutorial doesn't work for me:

i am trying to install mint from an existing debian system without cd/usb. i want to make a clean installation and delete debian.

following the instuctions i can make the entries in the grub bootloader appear but once i select some i get:

for "unetbootin":
(initramfs)unable to find medium containing a live file system

for all other new entries ("start mint", "memory test", ...):
no such partition
load kernel first

the tutorial states that if i get this error i should use another unetbootin version and that is where i am stuck right now!?

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=108686

[viking777]

i am trying to install mint from an existing debian system without cd/usb. i want to make a clean installation and delete debian.

Ah that is different, you didn't say that before. My bit about qemu-kvm will not work in that case. And if you read my post here:

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=94347&p=540600

I don't think unetbootin will either, or at least I couldn't make it work (see last edit on that page).

I'm curious about 2 things though. Do you really have a computer that has no cd drive and no usb ports? And if that is the case how did you install Debian?

Edit. Just found this:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/ISOBoot

That may be what you need to do, I wouldn't call it user friendly though.

[brunaux]

I'm curious about 2 things though. Do you really have a computer that has no cd drive and no usb ports? And if that is the case how did you install Debian?

i installed debian from inside windows ...
and i have a cd/dvd drive but i thought i couldnt use a cd since mint doesnt fit on cd (dont ask me why i thought that i couldnt just burn a dvd somehow i thought that for booting you must have a cd).

thanks for the link i will dig into that, because i somehow got the hang of akward booting methods.
and thanks for replying to all my posts!