Actual Reality

Note: The following instructions are valid only for the alternate installer! Using a Live CD image won’t work. Please read my guide here for instructions on booting the Live CD from a USB drive.

Today I decided to install Ubuntu 8.10 with the alternate CD so that I could get a command-line system without all of the extra packages that are normally installed with Ubuntu. Unfortunately, my CD-ROM drive was not cooperating and was giving I/O errors when the installer was running, so I was forced to try installation using a flash drive. The directions in the Ubuntu community documentation were outdated and unclear on how to use the alternate image with a USB drive, so I was forced to improvise and thus discovered a great way to install Ubuntu without wasting a good CD-R.

For this method, you’ll need at least a 1GB USB drive and a high-speed internet connection.

1. Download the appropriate ISO image from the Ubuntu home page. I chose the 64-bit alternate image, which provided me with the text-based installer (much better than the graphical installer) and the ability to install a minimal command-line only system, as well as the ability to fully utilize my 64-bit processor (an Intel Core 2 Duo).

2. While this is downloading, you can start preparing the USB drive. I’d suggest formatting it to a fresh FAT16 partition.

Windows: This can be accomplished by right-clicking on the drive in My Computer, click on Format, choose FAT in the File System drop-down, and then click Start.

Linux: You can format the drive using sudo mkdosfs -F 16 /dev/sdc1 (substituting the proper device node of your drive for /dev/sdc1). FAT32 will probably work fine too, but I didn’t test it.

3. Windows: Download Syslinux (latest version at the bottom) and extract the archive somewhere like C:\SYSLINUX.

Linux: Install Syslinux from your distribution’s repositories, if it isn’t already installed.

4. Install SYSLINUX on your USB drive.

Windows: Open a command prompt (Start->Run->cmd) and navigate to C:\SYSLINUX\win32. Then type

syslinux -s -m F:

where F: is the path to your USB drive.

Linux: Open a terminal and type

sudo syslinux /dev/sdc1

where /dev/sdc1 is the location of your USB drive.

5. Download initrd.gz and vmlinuz from the Ubuntu archive (32-bit versions, 64-bit versions) and place both files in the root of your USB drive. Technical note: it is important to use the hd-media images because otherwise the installer won’t be able to find the ISO image later on.

6. Place the ISO image you downloaded earlier in the root directory of the USB drive. It doesn’t matter what it’s called as long as it ends in .iso.

7. Create a file named syslinux.cfg in the root of the flash drive and add the following lines to it (choose one of the three below):

Regular installation:

default vmlinuz

append initrd=initrd.gz

Command line system installation:

default vmlinuz

append initrd=initrd.gz file=/cdrom/preseed/cli.seed

LTSP server installation:

default vmlinuz

append initrd=initrd.gz file=/cdrom/preseed/ltsp.seed

Note: the /cdrom/ is not a typo!

8. Reboot your computer and make sure you choose to boot from the USB drive in the BIOS. The rest of the Ubuntu installation should proceed exactly as it would from a CD-ROM, with one exception: after the installation is finished, you need to do some configuring to add the USB drive as a source in apt.

9. Once the installation is complete, boot into your new system and open up a terminal. Copy the contents of the ISO image to your hard drive so that you don’t have to have your USB drive plugged in when you add packages. To do so, mount the USB drive and then mount the ISO image somewhere, and copy the files recursively to your hard drive:

sudo mkdir /media/flash
mkdir ~/ubuntu-cdrom
sudo mount /dev/sdc /media/flash
mount -o loop /media/flash/ubuntu-8.10-alternate-amd64.iso /cdrom
cp -r /cdrom/* ~/ubuntu-cdrom
umount /cdrom

Of course, you should substitute /dev/sdc with the location of your flash drive and ubuntu-8.10….iso with the name of your ISO image. You should end up with all of the files from the ISO image located under ~/ubuntu-cdrom or wherever you decided to put it.
Now edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file to include this location:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

and add at the bottom

deb file:/home/jesse/ubuntu-cdrom intrepid main restricted

where jesse is your user name. Finally, run

sudo apt-get update

to add the new source. You now should be able to install any of the packages that are on the CD with no problems.

Troubleshooting

If you’re having trouble getting the USB drive to boot, try installing a new Master Boot Record (MBR) on the drive using the instructions below.

Linux:

1. Install the mbr package. On Ubuntu use sudo apt-get install mbr
2. Run install-mbr to install a new MBR on the USB drive, where /dev/sdc is the path to the USB drive’s device node: sudo install-mbr /dev/sdc
3. Reboot and choose the USB drive as the boot-up drive.
4. If you see a prompt that says “MBR FA:” press A, then 1. This will boot from the first partition on the USB drive.
5. Proceed from step 9 in the guide above.
   

Windows:

1. Open a command prompt (Start->Run->cmd).
2. Type the following, where F: is your USB drive, then press Enter: fdisk /mbr F:
3. Reboot and choose the USB drive as the boot-up drive.
4. Proceed from step 9 in the guide above.