Is installation witout cdrom possible?

Liinty · n00b Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 8 Location: NL

My cdromdrive does not work on my notebook however I would like to install gentoo.
Floppy-drive and networkcard are working fine.

I have searched for any sollutions in the topics but do not recognise any possibilities for my problem.

Is there any way to install gentoo directly or might it be an idea to start installation on a 2nd pc and copy that to my notebook?

Cheers!

schmeggahead · Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 10:22 am Post subject:

Actually, I've done this before with a bootable disk and created the network connection with an old RedHat 7.2 and the instructions on their site. :oops:

With the changes at Redhat since then, not sure that stuff is still available.

There may be instructions on making a bootable disk with network access and once you have that, you should be able to get stuff from the net and continue the install.

Once I had Redhat functioning enough to download the LIVECD to another partition on the hard drive, I used the alternate installation instructions for installing from an existing linux distribution.

It's kind of convoluted, but it will get you to Gentoo.

Let me see if I can find the instructions for the bootable network diskette.

You are going to need a lot of patience & creativity to succeed at this. 'Course you know that and love the challenge or you wouldn't be using Gentoo. :wink:

jesterjedi · n00b Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 3

thats what i'm doing at the moment, all you have to do when using the live cd is put at boot put

schmeggahead · Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 10:39 am Post subject:

The topic:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=63862&highlight=bootable+diskette
Shows how to get a bootable diskette.

If you can get the live cd to your laptop harddrive, you should be able to use the diskette from this thread to boot /dev/hda1.

If you have an existing operating system on that computer and room for another partition, you should be able to boot the livecd from the hard drive.

I also found the redhat boot diskette info I used to get redhat on the system in the first place:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-3-Manual/x8664-multi-install-guide/s1-steps-install-cdrom.html#S2-STEPS-MAKE-DISKS

Redhat has an idiot proof install (I did it quickly, so that proves my statement :wink:

), so it isn't too much trouble to take that tangent to get a system that can download.

Then follow the alternate method:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/altinstall.xml#doc_chap6
to install from an existing distro.

Hopefully, one of these will work for you.

Liinty · n00b Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 8 Location: NL

After reading your posts and reading the handbook alternative installation I was happy to find: "Installing Gentoo from an existing Linux distribution" and so I decided to combine the tips and make a seperate partition as temporary system.

After stage 1 I'll try to remove the slackware and copy it over to the main partition.
I'll let you know how things turn out.

Thanks so far anyway! I am currently happy in "stage 1" on my Pentium MMX

schmeggahead · Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2004 11:58 pm Post subject:

It's all about inventing a way that works.
I'm working on the email service so I can pull down roadrunner & compuserve and sort them into linux mailboxes so we can read and send email from any machine in the house.
It's cool.

Used the home email howto and it's really well written.
Good luck.