5.10: Netinstall Floppies

[Curufir]

Breezy network installation floppies for people without a cd writer/cd drive.

Grab 5 1.44mb floppy disks.

Download the files attached in this thread. (Thanks to the way the forum works I have had to split the disk images into 2 parts per disk. I have also had to give them a .zip extension. THESE ARE NOT ZIP FILES.)

Reconsitute the disk images using these commands.

Windows:
copy /b boot1.zip+boot2.zip boot.img

*nix:
cat boot1.zip boot2.zip > boot.img

Write the images onto the floppy disks.

Windows:
Use Rawrite (http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite.htm)

*nix:
dd if=boot.img of=/dev/fd0

Reboot and set your BIOS to boot using the floppy drive. Insert the disk with boot img and follow the instructions on screen.

Notes:
This install method doesn't contain all the network drivers Ubuntu supports (madwifi is a major one). Your network card may not be supported.

This HOWTO uses a hacked up version of GRUB that allows composition of an initrd image from multiple files. Do not report bugs to the GRUB devs.

My Qemu test install failed to detect the network card after rebooting, causing installation to fail (I got dropped to the command line). This may be a Qemu only problem, the fix is easy enough. sudo dhclient eth0 then sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop.

I repeat THESE ARE NOT ZIP FILES.

md5sums:

f8266f68de75301aeeeba247c2419b91 boot.img
b9d94997278e10156dba0f1832f630df disk1.img
ba60dc33896d3ed160a5ab69b64803d2 disk2.img
088d588780f6dc7197dc08334807b921 disk3.img
2a6ae7f708111cd91ff05ce6ebefef7c disk4.img

66b6d38192f3220edd2328371cd82192 boot1.zip
eeb60d7799bd82cda43ce243462545d8 boot2.zip
8c5d2a54da3fc42ef6e97a3420016ed2 dsk1pt1.zip
696de10984ca59f0818529cfce2933bf dsk1pt2.zip
9282d6d244f1c54a0a652a52391f60b0 dsk2pt1.zip
0f150736586265c1cbe1b3ec84277418 dsk2pt2.zip
a506b95254d8ea841f15a26f490d5536 dsk3pt1.zip
2d9e09f9a3950ac20bf0e5a2f216cf55 dsk3pt2.zip
a2da1679cfba6a3e22035d4698dd4110 dsk4pt1.zip
7761c40323f84b6de663a66eada50d09 dsk4pt2.zip

[Curufir]

Disks 1 and 2

[Curufir]

Disks 3 and 4

[majikstreet]

Do they inlcude ndiswrapper?

[UbuWu]

You can also do a netinstall from cd: download the following iso (only a few mb's) and burn it to cd and then boot from it:

http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/breezy/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/mini.iso

[mr_mop]

Thanks for this, its great! :KS

Is it possible to modify this so that it only does the server install and not the full system?

[mlomker]

You can also do a netinstall from cd: download the following iso (only a few mb's)

Thanks for the link! I have Breezy set up on my RIS server at work now. Fun. :cool:

[garba]

PLEASE, in the name of the almighty breezy badger, somebody put a link to the net install files in the download section! I had to download the full iso just to get the kernel and initrd files needed for a net install because i couldnt find them anywhere on the web! thanks in advance

[mr_mop]

Ummm here?
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/breezy/main/installer-i386/current/images/

[bonjun]

thanks for this workaround....but, is there a way that i can install badger directly from downloaded ISO, the ISO is in a partition/folder,, thanks

[mlomker]

i can install badger directly from downloaded ISO, the ISO is in a partition/folder,, thanks

Not for a normal install. PC's do not boot to ISO files. If you are going to run it inside of VMWare then VMWare can boot an ISO file.

[kozimodo]

Thanks for this, its great! :KS

Is it possible to modify this so that it only does the server install and not the full system?

Just interrupt the internet connection after the initial reboot.

[herot]

if the network install locks up at say... "66% configuring python 2.4" is there a way to resume without having to download everything before that over again???

[kaamos]

After booting with the boot floppy, all I get is the grub prompt.. Any ideas how to proceed?

This is an old fujitsu lifebook with a pcmcia cd-rom drive. Is there any way to be able to boot straight from cd? I'm running breezy on desktop and having a win98 laptop is creeping me out.. :)

[Curufir]

After booting with the boot floppy, all I get is the grub prompt.. Any ideas how to proceed?


Odd. My guess would be either a corrupted image (So GRUB can't read the disk), or maybe GRUB just doesn't work with your laptop BIOS (Not likely, since win98 sounds like it boots fine and GRUB uses the same BIOS interrupts).

I'd suggest downloading the image parts again, reconstituting the image and writing it out to a different disk. If it still doesn't work then you might try the PXE netboot option https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Installation/Netboot?action=show&redirect=NetbootInstall if your hardware supports it.

[eaymon]

Hi this has really helped me out alot (installing it as we speak yummy!) just a note or two.

1.) make sure u fully format the disks first or buy new ones( 2nd option is much better)

2.) have patience :-P

for the person installing on a life book (i have the lovely little b110) check your disks and re-download each disk if needed.
after booting to grub and selecting the ubuntu network install it will go through the boot disk and request the first disk the rest should follow

[bkp_42]

I feel like naming my next kid Curufir. This is like HamaRamaKwanzMas come early!

Thank You!!!!!!

[Edd]

Nice thanks for this, finaly a easy way to install ubuntu on my old laptop :)

[vahirua]

Man, this really saved my day! Thanks a lot!!! I owe you big time!

[vahirua]

By the way.. After reboot my install on an old Gateway Solo 2550 also hang and left me with a boot prompt and no network access. But after initializing the dhclient (sudo dhclient eth0) it all worked out fine with sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop. Or so it seems (still installing :)

[surfer57]

Good Morning and Hello from beautiful Birmingham, Alabama.....a followup response to the instructions given concerning Netinstall Floppies - It worked great...thanks so much for this thread....for all the "zip" files...

two caveats

-used Canadian archive as US archive continued to fail - server may have been down...
-used sudo apt get commands for dhclient and gnome desktop - worked great in startx

in process of updating

installed on a Panasonic CF-M34 Toughbook - bios only allows boot from A: and C:, no CD Rom boot instruction found in bios -

I have googled this project to the nth degree and attempted to install Ubuntu on this system for weeks....then I found this thread - currently running Ubuntu Breezy on two AMD systems and one Pentium system - Ubuntu Rocks!!! Thanks again for all your help!!!

[brokensabers]

finally i could install Ubuntu on my toshiba portege 2000 :D
Thank you very much
but after installed i got hoary:confused: not breezy i don't know which step i did it wrong
but i'm trying to upgrade to breezy today
thank you thank you and thank you

[malavar]

hey, i tried this for my old laptop, and it works fine but doesnt detect my network card which is pcmcia . any idea where to get modules for this?

[kamiro1987]

Can i DD the floppie images to my harddrive instead? Would this work? is the installer done with them once its loaded or do they need to stick around. I have an old laptop (external cdrom, external floppy. got it used without both)

[nicky.7]

I have a problem.
After all the floppies had benn readed, it say:
EXT2-fs error (device ram0): ext2_check_page : bad entry in directory #1681 .........

i'm trying to use this method on a ASUS L8400

[magog45]

Seems to me that for some older machines that can't boot from CDrom there is one thing missing from Ubuntu that most other distros provide, a boot floppy. I too wish to install Ubuntu on an old Dell laptop that is unable to boot off the CDrom but in the past I have installed SUSE, Mandrake, Corel, BSD, BeOS and of course Windoze using a boot floppy that initializes the system and looks for the install media in the CDrom. I have searched this forum high and low and have been unable to find a floppy image that will do that, perhaps I missed it somewhere any aid would be appreciated.

[spam01@radempire.com]

Yippie! High Five for the help! I finally got the ubuntu installer started on my Portege 2000 (No cd drive). I've tried several methods with various boot installers (Smart boot manager) and even tried the Debian netinstall but it seemed to fail on the network source. I even hacked up my 3.5" external hard disk enclosure so I could attach an external 5.25" cd rom and it works but it did not want to boot.

Anyhow, this worked like a champ... Smooth sailing from here.

Thanks Again!

[berty]

hi all,
works great! but were are the sources. I would like to change it for dapper.
thx matze

[berty]

hi,
just found something here:
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/dapper/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/
I will check this.
matze

[Coinnach]

Want to say "Thanks" to Curufir for this How to - I am a Linux virgin and I popped my cherry finally thanks to Curufir's NetInstall thread.

I have an eMachine ETower 466is with a cdrom that won't boot, even after swapping it out for a new one, changing the ribbon cable, testing every jumper setting I could and casting chicken bones! Trying to install Ubuntu was driving me nuts until I found Curufir's thread and it worked like a dream. Great stuff

Now on to the next problem of trying to work out how to upgrade to Dapper.

PS Great Forum btw

[anizee]

THIS NEEDS AN UPDATE!!!!
PLEASE!

Possibly to 6.10, but If someone could make an Xubuntu install that would be better. Then U could add whatever U want!

[TheMas]

Wow. Finally a boot disk system applicable for my ThinkPad240. UDB-CD. PCMCIA-Ethernet-Card without any specs. Spooky....
The alternative was a boot-floppy--installerCD - combination with Debian. Great. 4 Floppies and over 11 (eleven) installer CDs to download. What a monster. With my Kubuntu-liveCD things are far more handy after your boot-disks came in here.
Thomas

[__markus__]

Hey Guys:
first of all thanx for this nice work, but there is still a problem for me: I only got a pcmcia Network card (3com 3c589D) in a Toshiba Tecra 500cdt. The automatic detection is not able to find it.
Was trying to do
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.12-9-386/kernel/drivers/net/pcmcia/3c589_cs.ko
but received
error ... Unknown symbol in module
Any ideas!? thanks

btw I only have a floppy drive .. no cd ... no other network devices :(

[Curufir]

Sounds like you're using a module compiled for a different kernel..

I've updated the disks to Edgy(http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=350651). You may have more luck installing using those, or at least have more luck finding a 3com module that matches the kernel on the disks.

[Q4U]

Thanks for your effort: it is really indispensable for several Toshiba sub-notebooks (a.k.a. Portege 3xxx and 4xxx) which have a PCMCIA CD ROM or DVD ROM not recognized by the installer.

Now to the question. I need to install kubuntu (or perhaps xubuntu) for a friend who has no broadband. I need a stable system and right now with Feisty forthcoming, I feel the 6.06 is better as it guarantees another two years of support with hopefully not too many changes.

I did it by updating 5.10, but it does not work really well... So I would need to do the 6.06 netinstall disks.

You've been really nice to do the 5.10 and 6.10 version..... could you pls post a little tutorial on how to do this for 6.06 as well?? Thanks. Q

[__markus__]

Sounds like you're using a module compiled for a different kernel..

I've updated the disks to Edgy(http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=350651). You may have more luck installing using those, or at least have more luck finding a 3com module that matches the kernel on the disks.
It worked with the disks for 6.10 edgy. Thanks so far, but unfortunately I faced new problems ... the xubuntu installation stops at 85% while preparing the package ttf-bitstream-vera.
I will ask google ...

Markus

[Curufir]

I'd probably install the server first, then apt-get the xubuntu-desktop package later. That way you have a working system to fix things in.

[wraund]

Hopefully this isnt dead, when I combine the files it comes to 1440kb, and wont fit on the flioppy disc, on both windows and linux. What do I do?