[CentOS] CentOS-5.5 Live CD & netinstall

Thu Apr 7 13:06:31 UTC 2011
Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com>

On 4/7/11 7:47 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> Les Mikesell wrote:
>
>>> If anyone can suggest a simpler way of installing CentOS
>>> on a machine without a CD drive I should be interested to hear.
>>>
>>
>> I thought I did that a long time ago.  Put the small boot.img file that is
>> in the /images on the CD or DVD isos on a USB drive (you can use a
>> loopback mount to get it if you can't find a place to download it
>> separately), boot from it, pick nfs as the install method, and point it to
>> the directory containing the CD
>> iso images that you have under an NFS export on another box.
>
> Sorry, Les.
> I did read your suggestion, and it was indeed on my list of options,
> if running Network Installation from the Live USB stick didn't work.
> And I have noted it for CentOS-6, since apparently
> Network Installation from CentOS Live CD will no longer be available.
> (Why not, as a matter of interest?)
>
> But when I said "simple" I really meant
> "following official methods and instructions given by Them,
> the CentOS powers-that-be".
>
> I assume that the lack of a CD drive on the HP micro-server
> is a sign of things to come,
> so I would hope there would be an official method of installing CentOS
> on such a machine.

I don't get it.  That's the whole point of the boot.img, which is made to simply 
dd onto a usb device.  And having booted from that, there is nothing different 
than any other way of booting into the installer except that you have to tell it 
where the install media is.  It is exactly the same as if you had booted the 
install CD or DVD with 'linux askmethod' at the boot prompt to get that 
question.  No special methods or instructions needed, and the only thing that 
won't be obvious until you have done it is that the installer knows how to work 
with the CD iso images saved in a directory.

-- 
    Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com