Installing Linux on a hard drive before installing the hard drive..?

[Old Pink]

I have a hard drive (6GB) out of my laptop that I've loaded onto my desktop in a USB environment. Currently it's just FAT32 and functioning as an external hard drive.

I'm wondering if there's any easy way to install Ubuntu to this hard drive, then put it in an old Dell laptop I've got an fire it up? (The laptop doesn't have a CD drive, and won't boot from USB)

Ubuntu is the priority, but if there's any easier/smaller/made-for-purpose distributions anyone knows about, I'm happy to try them.

If I could boot from an Alternative LiveCD, mount the 6GB usb, install Ubuntu, put the hard drive in the laptop and turn it on, that'd be the dream - but I know nothing is that easy. Also if I could do the install to the hard drive from within XP, that'd be nice too, save accidentally messing up anything on this computer.

[Cheesemill]

If I could boot from an Alternative LiveCD, mount the 6GB usb, install Ubuntu, put the hard drive in the laptop and turn it on, that'd be the dream - but I know nothing is that easy.

It's that easy.

Simply fire up the Live CD (you could use the Alternate CD but there really is no point) and install as usual, just make sure you install GRUB onto the USB drive rather than your PC's main hard disk.

I'm not sure of the system requirements but 6GB would be pushing it, that might not be enough space when you start installing applications.

[Old Pink]

It's that easy.

Simply fire up the Live CD (you could use the Alternate CD but there really is no point) and install as usual, just make sure you install GRUB onto the USB drive rather than your PC's main hard disk.

I'm not sure of the system rewuirements but ^GB would be pushing it, that might not be ebough space when you start installing applications.

Cheers for the help. A couple quick points:

• How do I make sure I install GRUB to the USB drive, and not this computer? I really don't want to mess anything up on this PC.
• I will most likely be using the alternate CD, just because this computer is pretty slow. If the USB drive doesn't automatically mount, how can I mount it?
• Is there any way to do this from a virtual machine? Just to save accidentally screwing anything up with GRUB.

[Cheesemill]

To make absolutely sure you install GRUB to the correct place you can disconnect the computers internal drive. If you don't want to do this then just make sure you take a look at the advanced options when it comes to installing the bootloader. If you're using the alternate CD then it's more obvious than if you use the Live CD.

You don't need to mount the USB drive, in fact the installer will unmount it when you try to do the partitioning as you can't partition a mounted drive.

It is possible to use a VM but this is usually more effot as with VirtualBox you first have to set up USB passthrough, and you wont be able to check if has installed properly with a VM as VirtualBox doesn't allow booting from USB devices.

[Old Pink]

I'm going to have a play around with my alternate CD ISO and Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. Failing that, I'll boot from my physical alternate CD and give it a pop.

Thanks again, I'll keep you informed.

[Old Pink]

OK so Virtual PC won't recognize USB drives, but it looks like I'll be able to crack it with VMWare.

[Bodsda]

OK so Virtual PC won't recognize USB drives, but it looks like I'll be able to crack it with VMWare.

Can't comment on Virtual PC, but VirtualBox can detect usb drives after you install the guest additions.

Bodsda

[daniell59]

My laptop would not boot off the flash drive. I took out the HD from the laptop. I hooked it up to my desktop. I then installed Ubuntu from a flash drive into the HD of the laptop. Put the HD back into the laptop. I am presently using it.

[varunendra]

OK so Virtual PC won't recognize USB drives, but it looks like I'll be able to crack it with VMWare.

At the moment, no virtual machine can boot directly from a USB drive, no matter which platform you use - VBox, VMware,..... whatever.

An easy workaround is to boot the VM with Plop iso (included in Plop Boot-Manager zip file). It will present you with a menu to further choose a boot device to boot from. Here you can choose USB at the bottom of the menu. All you need is a virtual machine which supports virtual USB port. I have personally tried it with Live USB flash drive on both VMware and VirtualBox. Of course, you don't have to install VM specific drivers (like VMware tools, Guest Additions, etc..) in this method (as they are simply drivers that run on top of the installed guest OS to enhance its performance 'on the VM')

As for installation, I would suggest following:

• Live or alternate, choose a lightweight version which such an old hardware is capable of running. If 6GB is the size of HDD, I doubt it can even run Lubuntu (minimum 128MB RAM required). So you may wish to try an even lighter distro, like Slitaz (16-192MB RAM), DSL (16MB RAM), or maybe even Crunchbang (not sure about min. specs required, but is an Ubuntu derivative, and some of us like it even more than Ubuntu)
• For the installation method, just create a blank Virtual Machine (with no HDD) > Add your 6GB HDD to it > Boot the VM with the iso of desired OS > install it on the 6GB HDD.
• To test the installation, boot the HDD (via USB) using the Plop trick suggested above. Make sure to set the RAM same as your old laptop to get a close idea of the performance you'll get on it.

Just for the record, I would request you to post your laptop specs and also which OS performance you found most satisfactory on it.

[mastablasta]

Chrunchbang is now based on Debian not anymore on Ubuntu. i think it takes arroun 4 GB on install depending what you install.

perhaps Puppy linux (also has version based on Ubuntu repositories), bodhi linux etc...

RAM is the key and also CPU, but hard disk in htis case is also limited. So Slitaz might be worth considering.