6 replies to this topic

[trinity]

Just learned of Unetbootin this weekend. It's clear how to make a bootable USB from an iso but although the Unetbootin site talks about a "frugal" install to a HDD I can't confirm exactly what this means.

I believe it means taking a linux iso, and using Unetbootin to install it to the HDD, rather than a USB stick. But can the install be to the same partition being used by Windows XP or 7 for example, formatted as NTFS?

I know that Puppy Linux has a frugal mode which will do just this but am unsure if Unetbootin's frugal mode does similar.

Or does it need to be to a separate partition just as a normal linux install would require?

And lastly, when the linux is installed is that all that is needed or is it then necessary to run the distro's installer?

Sorry for these basic questions but frankly Googling has failed to come up with any definitive answers.
The Unetbootin site suggests coming over here to get answers.
Glad I did as it's a really interesting site

Thanks

[Wonko the Sane]

Forget for the moment about Unetbootin, it is just a means to obtain something.

Frugal install "definitions":
http://www.damnsmall.../Frugal_Install
http://wiki.wolvix.org/FrugalInstall

To simplify, it is a live-CD booting from hard disk (or USB stick or SD card or whatever) instead of CD/DVD.

What you have on the device can be (it depends on actual methods used and specific distro):

• a .iso file (image of a CD/DVD) - one single file added to the device filesystem
• a .img file (image of a hard disk or partition) - one single file added to the device filesystem
• a kernel + an initrd (initial ramdisk) - two or often more files added to the device filesystem

Wonko

[trinity]

Wonko,
Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I am familiar with DSL, TinyCore, and Puppy frugals...so I understand the concept of a frugal.

But I am still unsure if I can use Unetbootin to load the frugal iso (or vmlinuz/initrd etc) to a partition that has another OS installed that I want to keep (as Puppy linux's frugal can do) or whether it has to be a clean partition ( or one that will be replaced by the new distro?)

If the former then will it work with an NTFS partition or does it have to be ext2/3 ?

If the latter then it seems Unetbooting won't allow selection to any other drive but the C drive which is very restrictive.

Or maybe that is distro dependant.???

Can you kindly clarify.
Thanks

[Wonko the Sane]

That's why I said forget Unetbootin.

If what you want is to boot "anywhere" a live-CD" iso, you can use grub4dos (hd32) or (0xff) mapping with a number of distro's.

Read these two threads:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=5041
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=8944

If what you want is:

• make USB stick work as CD the answer may be Unetbootin (besides a number of other methods, including grub4dos or syslinux/memdisk) and, possibly, GRUB2

If what you want is:

• Multiboot with "live-CD" on "any" media, the answer becomes grub4dos (or syslinux/memdisk) and, possibly, GRUB2

Wonko

[trinity]

Wonko,
Okay I'll have to spend some time going through all the links you have provided, for which thanks.

What am I trying to achieve?

1. educate myself more
2. install Linux Mint (frugal) on the same ntfs partition that has windows 7 installed already.
I thought unetbootin would be a possible solution (nice friendly gui etc) but it seems not.

Cheers

[Wonko the Sane]

It seems like you are a lucky guy (or gal) as you can do both here on boot-land.

Now that we know what distro you are wanting to use:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=9523

title Linux Mint 7

find --set-root /Images/LinuxMint-7.iso

map /Images/LinuxMint-7.iso (0xff)

map --hook

root (0xff)

kernel /casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/Images/LinuxMint-7.iso quiet splash --

initrd /casper/initrd.gz

Add to the above reading the guide:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=5187
Particularly these parts:
http://diddy.boot-la...ws.htm#windows3
http://diddy.boot-la.../files/menu.htm

Get LATEST grub4dos from here:
http://nufans.net/grub4dos/
right now:
http://nufans.net/gr...-2009-10-16.zip

If you have one of those stooopid Windows 7 installs with the 100 or 200 Mb partition, you might need to read this, additionally:
http://www.boot-land...?...c=9697&st=3


And you should be able to start playing the game .



Wonko

[bobmorton]

Thanks for sharing the code.




----------------------
Bob Morton
name numerology book reader