Installing fedora from LARGE usb stick

[GooblyWoobly]

I have large (8gig) USB stick. What I want is, convert the fedora 9 DVD iso to a partition on the USB stick that I can do the installation from.

The livecd tools only sets up the usb as bootable media, I still need to do the installation from something else (network!!). What I want is to have a complete installable DVD image on the usb stick, and take it anywhere and do the installation. How to do that?

I have tried

livecd-iso-to-disk --noverify Fedora-9-i386-DVD.iso /dev/sdb1

but that just puts Anaconda and grub and the basic boot image on the stick, not the whole DVD repository. How do I go about doing that?

Thanks.

[AntMan]

I have large (8gig) USB stick. What I want is, convert the fedora 9 DVD iso to a partition on the USB stick that I can do the installation from.

The livecd tools only sets up the usb as bootable media, I still need to do the installation from something else (network!!). What I want is to have a complete installable DVD image on the usb stick, and take it anywhere and do the installation. How to do that?

I have tried

livecd-iso-to-disk --noverify Fedora-9-i386-DVD.iso /dev/sdb1

but that just puts Anaconda and grub and the basic boot image on the stick, not the whole DVD repository. How do I go about doing that?

Thanks.
The livecd-iso-to-disk script only woks on the Fedora LiveCD iso's. (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/USBHowTo)

You'll need other tricks to get the DVD iso to work as an USB stick install.

Antman

[GooblyWoobly]

The livecd-iso-to-disk script only woks on the Fedora LiveCD iso's. (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/USBHowTo)

You'll need other tricks to get the DVD iso to work as an USB stick install.

Antman

Any pointer for the so called "tricks"?

[sideways]

No tricks required, not only is this possible but it will probably become the most popular way to install future Fedora releases, since burning dvds is environmentally wasteful. Admittedly, the Fedora team don't advertise this method, which is a puzzle to me?

You need a min 4GB USB stick, I'll assume it's identified as /dev/sdb and that you're in F8 with livecd-tools package installed. make sure the usb stick is formatted with vfat and empty

su -
mkdir /mnt/iso
mount -o loop <path to>/Fedora-9-i386-DVD.iso /mnt/iso
livecd-iso-to-disk /mnt/iso/images/boot.iso /dev/sdb1


This may generate a warning about a checksum which you can ignore, for other issues see http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/USBHowTo (The most common is making the partition bootable, which you do by typing 'parted /dev/sdb' and then 'toggle 1 boot')

Now mount the usb stick (just remove it and reinsert), I'll assume it's on /media/disk-1, and just copy the DVD iso image to the usb stick (This is actually slower than burning with most modern dvd burners (!), and the only negative against this method)

cp <path to>/Fedora-9-i386-DVD.iso /media/disk-1/

To install from this usb stick, boot your machine and select usb as boot option (may require bios edit), then, after language selection, select 'Install from Hard Drive' as the install option, something like /dev/sdb1 should be listed in the available hard disks, which is the usb stick :)

[AntMan]

No tricks required

Hey, I think that qualifies as a trick. ;)

Thanks

[GooblyWoobly]

No tricks required, not only is this possible but it will probably become the most popular way to install future Fedora releases, since burning dvds is environmentally wasteful. Admittedly, the Fedora team don't advertise this method, which is a puzzle to me?

You need a min 4GB USB stick, I'll assume it's identified as /dev/sdb and that you're in F8 with livecd-tools package installed. make sure the usb stick is formatted with vfat and empty

su -
mkdir /mnt/iso
mount -o loop <path to>/Fedora-9-i386-DVD.iso /mnt/iso
livecd-iso-to-disk /mnt/iso/images/boot.iso /dev/sdb1


This may generate a warning about a checksum which you can ignore, for other issues see http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/USBHowTo (The most common is making the partition bootable, which you do by typing 'parted /dev/sdb' and then 'toggle 1 boot')

Now mount the usb stick (just remove it and reinsert), I'll assume it's on /media/disk-1, and just copy the DVD iso image to the usb stick (This is actually slower than burning with most modern dvd burners (!), and the only negative against this method)

cp <path to>/Fedora-9-i386-DVD.iso /media/disk-1/

To install from this usb stick, boot your machine and select usb as boot option (may require bios edit), then, after language selection, select 'Install from Hard Drive' as the install option, something like /dev/sdb1 should be listed in the available hard disks, which is the usb stick :)

Perfect. This works. Thanks a lot.
Wonder why this is not there as part of the documentation. With the larger and cheaper USB keys, this should be the easiest thing to do rather than burning dvds.

[sideways]

Agreed. Don't worry, I'm gonna pester them during the F10 pre-release - especially if the x86_64 dvd release gets too close to the 4gb usb stick limit for this.

Thanks for the feedback :)

[bingoUV]

livecd-iso-to-disk does not support boot.iso. Didn't work for me so I filed a bug (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=449575). Seems that the doc erroneously mentions that it works, and it works for some guys.

But livecd-iso-to-disk will always work for live CD.

[sideways]

livecd-iso-to-disk does not support boot.iso. Didn't work for me so I filed a bug (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=449575). Seems that the doc erroneously mentions that it works, and it works for some guys.

But livecd-iso-to-disk will always work for live CD.

Which livecd-iso-to-disk script did you use? I used the one on the F9 LiveCD iso and it works fine (you have to ignore the checksum error)

I would post on your bugzilla, but I'm saving my rant on this for the F10 testing phase where it might actually be acknowledged in an intelligent way - I know it works, so do many others. If it's an accident that the F9 boot.iso image works then it's a very good accident that should be made deterministic in future fedora releases.

And I will be using the words "environmentally friendly" in my rant just to get on their nerves. ;)

[bingoUV]

I mounted DVD iso of F9, and got images/boot.iso. I think it should be the same boot.iso as shipped with F9 live CD, but I may be wrong.

EDIT: I used the script installed using "yum install livecd-tools" in F8


When you rant during F10 days, you could also tell them that DVDs cost money and re-re-writable DVDs are very expensive. Trying out a "free" distro should not cost money in burning DVDs.