On 07/10/2014 02:20 PM, Timothy Murphy wrote:

...

1. Why isn't [livecd-iso-to-disk] available on CentOS?

It's in EPEL.

On 07/10/2014 01:20 PM, Timothy Murphy wrote:

I tried dd-ing the ISO onto a USB stick, as suggested in http://wiki.centos.org/Manuals/ReleaseNotes/CentOS7, but it didn't boot. Did anyone have better luck with this?

In any case, I got it working by running livecd-iso-to-disk on a Fedora-20 laptop. I've found before that this is the best program around for the purpose.

But I've 2 queries about this:

1. Why isn't this program available on CentOS?

2. I find it strange the using a USB stick

seems to be regarded as an out-of-the-ordinary idea. Are people still burning CDs or DVDs? And if so why?

I would have thought the time had come to make USB sticks the standard installation method? Certainly it should be treated on a par with DVDs.

I have two HP MicroServers running under CentOS, and these don't come with a DVD drive. I assumed this was becoming more or less standard?

I did all of my test installs from USB, so it does work.

The command is:

dd if=./<name>.iso of=/dev/<device>

Obviously the name would be something like: CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-DVD.iso or CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-NetInstall.iso or any other of the isos

It is critical that the device the the device name and not a partition name. In CentOS-6, you can use "Application => System Tools => Disk Utility" to find your USB stick's device name. For example, /dev/sdd (device) would be used, not /dev/sdd1 (partition)

You also have to run the command as root.

So, a working command would be, as root (if your usb stick was /dev/sdd):

dd if=./CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-DVD.iso of=/dev/sdd

I have boot that exact USB stick on an older BIOS only Dell Laptop (m4500) with no UEFI, a new Thinkpad with UEFI secure boot mode on and off, and a M5A99X EVO R2.0 motherboard with UEFI and secureboot on and off. Installs were conducted on all with no issues.

On 07/10/2014 02:20 PM, Timothy Murphy wrote:

I tried dd-ing the ISO onto a USB stick, as suggested in http://wiki.centos.org/Manuals/ReleaseNotes/CentOS7, but it didn't boot. Did anyone have better luck with this?

I just tried the USB stick method, using the CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-Everything.iso as the media. The command line I used to copy the iso to the stick was:

ddrescue --force CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-Everything.iso /dev/sdb

where /dev/sdb is my USB stick. I use ddrescue simply because it tends to be faster than dd for large images and it gives a progress display (and it's in the repos for CentOS 6).

The stick booted just fine into the installer, and while I did the media verification step I did not proceed to install (it was just a test boot).

The USB stick involved is a low-end PNY 8GB stick, and here is the lsusb -v output: Bus 002 Device 007: ID 154b:007a PNY Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 64 idVendor 0x154b PNY idProduct 0x007a bcdDevice 11.00 iManufacturer 1 PNY Technologies iProduct 2 USB 2.0 FD iSerial 3 AA00000000009494 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 2 wTotalLength 32 bNumInterfaces 1 bConfigurationValue 1 iConfiguration 0 bmAttributes 0x80 (Bus Powered) MaxPower 500mA Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 2 bInterfaceClass 8 Mass Storage bInterfaceSubClass 6 SCSI bInterfaceProtocol 80 Bulk-Only iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0200 1x 512 bytes bInterval 255 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x02 EP 2 OUT bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0200 1x 512 bytes bInterval 255 Device Qualifier (for other device speed): bLength 10 bDescriptorType 6 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 64 bNumConfigurations 1 Device Status: 0x0000 (Bus Powered)