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    How would I go about installing Ubuntu with no optical drive?

    Discussion in 'Linux Compatibility and Software' started by ExZeRoEx, Sep 20, 2008.

  1. ExZeRoEx

    ExZeRoEx Notebook Consultant

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    Hey, I was thinking about getting a Thinkpad X200 and dualbooting Ubuntu and Vista, but since it has no optical drive I don't know how I would be able to have a backup of Windows.
     
    ExZeRoEx, Sep 20, 2008
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  2. srunni

    srunni Notebook Deity

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    srunni, Sep 20, 2008
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  3. Tailic

    Tailic Notebook Deity

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    If you're doing it from windows this would work. It's made for Fedora but you can download a cd image of Ubuntu and click browse and find the image on the disk.

    Aren't you going to buy a external USB drive for your notebook? You might be able to get away with daemon tools and maybe use a external computer's cdrom over the network but doing that everytime you want to install something can become annoying.

    edit: as for backing up, you can use a USB drive or a networked computer but Ubuntu is pretty good about not messing up your system. Use magic bean to get your cdkey and see if you can find a Vista install disc.

    You may want to reinstall when you get the system anyways, they install way to much Thinkvantage utilities with the default image. The Thinkpad forums has reinstall guilds.
     
    Tailic, Sep 20, 2008
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  4. DMANbluesfreak

    DMANbluesfreak Notebook Consultant

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    Actually if you use ubuntu 8.04, it has an executable file embedded in the ISO (you could mount to a virtual drive) that allows you to install ubuntu from windows. I'm pretty sure it copies all the needed files while in windows and then restarts into ubuntu to finish the install...
     
    DMANbluesfreak, Sep 22, 2008
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  5. ExZeRoEx

    ExZeRoEx Notebook Consultant

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    Alright, thanks for the options, I guess I just need to decide what comp to install Ubuntu on.
     
    ExZeRoEx, Sep 22, 2008
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  6. Ayle

    Ayle Trailblazer

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    I don't really like the idea of installing from windows. Since the live cd is pretty slow I used unetbootin:
    Get a flash drive, format it to fat32.
    Download Unetbootin: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
    Download the iso image of the distribution ypi are trying to install
    Use unetbooting to create a libeusb from the iso image and Voila!
    Reboot from usb and install ubuntu in less than 15 minutes :D!
     
    Ayle, Sep 24, 2008
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  7. DMANbluesfreak

    DMANbluesfreak Notebook Consultant

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    Dang, thats FASTTT! I might do that the next time, despite the fact that I have an optical drive. :D
     
    DMANbluesfreak, Sep 24, 2008
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  8. Fittersman

    Fittersman Wanna trade?

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    wow, thats a pretty sweet thing, im definitely going to use that next time for installing my linux stuff :)
     
    Fittersman, Sep 24, 2008
    #8