Downloading Mint straight into a partition.

[altair4]

I too create my own partitions first and use a third party bootloader to boot so I understand the first part of your post. The second part about running from within Windows I understand to mean you're using mint4win which creates a virtual machine like install of Mint within the windows partition.

What I don't understand is the very last phrase:

install Linux directly without using a CD or USB.

I don't know what you mean by that. Please clarify.

[rich_roast]

Perhaps the OP is referring to a net install. I don't think that is supported by Mint (yet), but may be wrong or there may be a way to get it working but it seems to me more trouble than it's worth, bar dire circumstances.

[DrHu]

The Mint download ISO runs [via CD] from Windows and creates its own partition and swap files, how do I bypass this and install Linux directly without using a CD or USB.

..how do I bypass this and install Linux directly without using a CD or USB
That looks like the magic part. how do I use an installer medium without using an installer medium

• Or maybe I am reading too much into that statement ?

You can use a manual setup to be able to make use of the partition you have already provided..
--but it is just as easy, simply to have the free space available and let Mint automatically fill in the partition with its default partition table/setups..

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Insta ... /MinimalCD
http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/
If it is a netinstall option, they all use a minimal or boot CD to get started and then download the rest
http://www.the-labs.com/Qemu/


Whatis netwinstall..
http://www.macos.utah.edu/documentation ... store.html

• NetInstall, a.k.a. Network Install, was introduced with Mac OS X Server 10.2, as a method of network-booting Mac clients to distribute application software and OS updates.

• Nothing new then, PXE has been used for a long time for workstation automated installs..

[Fred]

I think what the thread starter means is something like what is described in the link below. This is for sidux however, so it doesn't apply as written for Ubuntu or Mint. sidux patched grub to make that cheat code available. I might add that I just did a clean install of the latest version of sidux KDE full. The total install time using fromiso was 1' 26".

http://manual.sidux.com/en/hd-install-opts-en.htm

This is one of the advantages with the new grub2. fromiso or similar will be enabled for any distro using grub2, as I understand it.

Fred