Network install / No-cd install

[Mitsurugi]

Hello there,

I've been recently looking at Linux Mint and found it quite interesting. I do have a problem however, that prevents me from trying it out: my laptop's DVD-ROM drive stopped working and buying a replacement part is too expensive :p

I have therefore been surviving on an ever self-deprecating Windows installation and on Debian whenever I need to get some work done.

The thing is, I now want to install Linux on this laptop for good, and I wanted to try out Linux Mint, since it's based on Debian (well I guess it's based on Ubuntu but whatever), looks impressively good and I've been reading a lot of favorable reviews around.

On to the question then: is there a way I can network-install Linux Mint? Is there a bootable floppy disk that does the job for me (like there is for Debian or Mandriva, for example)? How can I create one, if that's even remotely possible?

Thanks in advance for your attention

EDIT: Forgot to mention this - I do have an external (USB) DVD-ROM drive so I suppose a bootable floppy disk that would mount the DVD-ROM drive and install from there is also a solution.

[Boo]

try this:
http://home.arcor.de/mschierlm/bootdisk/
or this could be better:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SmartBootManagerHowto
but this may not work for external usb cdroms.

hopefully it works.

[Mitsurugi]

Thanks, it looks good. I'll try that out tonight

Nevertheless (if and) when I eventually find out a solution I'll post it here somewhere so that people can know how it can be done

Found a bit different approach for Knoppix which I'll also try out for Mint and see if it works: http://linuxgazette.net/116/okopnik1.html

EDIT: Problem solved. I managed to get my laptop to boot through USB by updating the BIOS.