How Can I Test Webcams in LIVE Mode?

[56es8lTI]

Install Mint/Ubuntu to a external harddrive or flash drive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKL1tmn-xC0

NOTE: This is a full blown install and not just a "creating a persistent file". You need at least an 8GB.

OK, I'll give it a try.

Thanks!

[56es8lTI]

Wow.

My biggest problem is only understanding about 15% of what the guy's saying, so a lot of the explanation is blowing past me.

What I don't get (because I can't understand him) is the manual partitioning rigmarole, as I thought that opting for using all available space on the selected drive automatically partitioned appropriately. No?

I'm going to be using a 80G small external drive, so there should be plenty of space.

[nerdtron]

Wow.

My biggest problem is only understanding about 15% of what the guy's saying, so a lot of the explanation is blowing past me.

What I don't get (because I can't understand him) is the manual partitioning rigmarole, as I thought that opting for using all available space on the selected drive automatically partitioned appropriately. No?

I'm going to be using a 80G small external drive, so there should be plenty of space.

Let's try to make it simple then. If you can remove the internal hard drive first it would be a lot easier since there won't be any confusion and if you intend to use the whole 80GB drive for ubuntu, you don't have to do manual partitioning at all.

Here:
1. Remove the internal hard drive.
2. Boot to your USB flash drive (the Ubuntu installer).
3. Insert the 80GB drive.
4. Hit the installer wizard of Ubuntu.
5. Since there is technically only one drive (the 80GB), you can choose "Erase everything and install Ubuntu" option in the wizard.
6. Just continue with the installation and all partitions will be created and boot loader will be installed also on the external drive.

Basically the concept here is that the installer will be forced to install on the External 80GB drive since this is the only drive on the computer.
Goodluck.

[56es8lTI]

Let's try to make it simple then. If you can remove the internal hard drive first it would be a lot easier since there won't be any confusion and if you intend to use the whole 80GB drive for ubuntu, you don't have to do manual partitioning at all.

I'm all for simplicity.

This was my original plan, but I thought there'd be an easier way than pulling the drive, which is not that readily accessed in this particular laptop...but I think I can do it.

1. Remove the internal hard drive.
2. Boot to your USB flash drive (the Ubuntu installer).

Presumably, I can just boot to the Ubuntu CD. I have no bootable Ubuntu flash drive.

Basically the concept here is that the installer will be forced to install on the External 80GB drive since this is the only drive on the computer.

Yeah, you can't screw up a system that's not installed.

Thanks!

[eternal243]

Using a Live CD works fine instead of using an USB stick. =)

[56es8lTI]

OK, here's the latest as of this evening:

With somewhat less drama and adventure than I usually encounter, I actually managed to bust open the laptop, pull the HD, plug in a USB external hard drive, install 12.04 onto the USB drive from the Live CD, get Ubuntu to run, put the Win7 HD back in and have an Ubuntu option without breaking anything.

During the install, Ubuntu used my laptop's webcam to offer to take a picture of me, so I guess it works. Roundabout method, but it's there.

OK, here's the interesting part: Despite changing the boot order for the USB-HDD to boot before the internal HDD, I found that the internal Win7 HDD booted anyway.

Can you guess why?

It took me a couple of minutes to figure it out.

At power-up, the USB-HDD isn't on long enough to spool up and be ready before failing in the boot order.

Solution?

Putting a music CD in the CD/DVD drive. The CD/DVD drive is first in the boot order. By the time the system sees it's not bootable, the USB-HDD is ready to boot.

IF IT'S STUPID AND IT WORKS, IT'S NOT STUPID!