HOWTO: Grub netinstall to full disk

[Curufir]

This is based on the work in these two threads:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=29358
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=28948

Problem I found with their solution is that you can't give Ubuntu the full disk (Both of those HOWTOs require certain files to already be on the disk).

So here's a set of floppy disk images that do exactly the same thing without needing files on the disk.

Instructions:

Grab 5 1.44mb floppy disks.

Due to forum restrictions I've had to split these files into chunks (Please ignore the .zip extension, they're plain binary files). Reassemble them using 'cat <file.1> <file.2> > <file.img>' on *nix, on Windows the copy command can do the same thing (Can't remember the exact syntax).

Dump the disk images onto the floppy disks. If you use Windows then get Rawrite. If you use *nix then just 'dd if=<image name> of=/dev/fd0' for each disk.

Reboot, set BIOS to boot from floppy and boot from the disk you wrote boot.img to. Insert the other disks as requested.

Notes:

The initrd doesn't contain all the modules that the ubuntu CD has. As far as network support goes YMMV. In particular there are none of the restricted modules.

The GRUB on boot.img is hacked to allow composition of an initrd from separate files. DO NOT report bugs to the GRUB devs.

I repeat that these ARE NOT ZIP FILES. The forum forces uploaded files to have an extension, that's just the one I decided to use.

Todo:

If someone desperately needs more drivers I'll look into throwing together a more complete initrd and kernel.

md5sums:

74cd9c932866574fa76e8ef0d1887f9a boot.img
0dc8cfd1d2daafceeec2cfb90eb0f7b6 disk1.img
5c0bd5586d75edf4846276ac8dcd14ca disk2.img
49d9dcb1991064bf9a9076dad1209b9c disk3.img
f35695e66f62d2bd3c50a9326e28c1a9 disk4.img

[Curufir]

Disks 1 and 2

[Curufir]

Disks 3 and 4

[ed_agamemnon]

Sweet!

I was just working on a solution myself using the windows ramdrive program to set up a virtual drive and copying the parts of (split with a DOS program called 'bisector') initrd.gz and linux over and then fooling GRUB into thinking that the ramdrive is (hd0)... didn't have much joy though

So happy that the problem's been solved


...


To answer your point about the windows copy command, well, it doesn't seem to be able to handle the files:

C:\>dir *.zip
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is E0EF-4AE0

Directory of C:\

25/04/2005 02:50 737,280 boot.img.1.zip
25/04/2005 02:50 737,280 boot.img.2.zip
2 File(s) 1,474,560 bytes
0 Dir(s) 8,343,076,864 bytes free

C:\>copy boot.img.1.zip+boot.img.2.zip boot.img
boot.img.1.zip
boot.img.2.zip
1 file(s) copied.

C:\>dir boot.img
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is E0EF-4AE0

Directory of C:\

25/04/2005 02:51 46,913 boot.img
1 File(s) 46,913 bytes
0 Dir(s) 8,343,027,712 bytes free

C:\>

As you can see, boot.img is only 45-odd kb large... which is odd!


-ed

[Curufir]

My apologies, I should have looked into the Windows syntax instead of just saying it was possible.

On Windows you need a /b flag to force copy into using binary mode.

Eg

copy /b boot.img.1.zip+boot.img.2.zip boot.img

[theonewhoismany]

hi disk one doesn't work for me. it only creates a 42k image file for me.


derr....i forgot the /b switch

[arcilite]

I tryed using the disks like they are described and i get a kernel panic. Above the final line it is griping about a bad entry in directory #434 and 353 saying that it is small than minimal.

[Curufir]

Well there is nothing wrong with those images (Just downloaded them to check).

You've either got some bad floppies (Sounds likely with that error) or you've messed up putting the images back together.

***

On a different note I should have called this thread something different. "Ubuntu netinstall from floppies" is much more explanatory.

[jr_G-man]

Just followed your instructions last night and I have a brand new Ubuntu system installed on my system with no CD drive. Thanks very much for your work.

[Dreamglider]

new to linux here, could someone make this install Ubuntu 5.10 by any chance ?
anyways, i have tried some ways to get Ubuntu on my laptop but in vain, since i cannot boot from usb and my cd/dvd drive is totaly busted but this seems to be working fine it&#180;s now installing the base system,.. it just rebooted downloading packages now seems to be working nice thanks alot
Keep up the nice work, this one did indeed work with out a hazle and nice to see that the floppys now install 5.10 thanks mate.