Re: installing debian from USB... IS IT POSSIBLE?
> for the love of everything that doesn't suck...
>
> could it be any harder to find a USB stick image to install debian
> from?
>
> i enter
>
>
> "debian usb image install"
>
> in google and get a diarrhea of howto's and shit.. but not a single
> link to an ftp server where i can download a fucking image...
>
> one howto even suggested to create that image from scratch.. you must
> be fucking kidding me...
>
>
> someone point me to a fucking image for an USB stick before i install
> windows and throw my shit out of the window... fucking shit...
>
> this for example..
>
>
> i click on http://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst
>
> then i click on http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual
>
> then i click on http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/
>
> and FUCK YOU... it's a fucking desert made of characters...
Wow, I just spent the last five minutes laughing. Even though I don't
feel this is the most productive way to ask for assistance, I must
confess to being able to relate to it due to having felt similar
frustration in the past.
In trying myself to find an answer to how to get an iso for a
usb-stick, I found it was a bit of a maze. From many of the links on
the issue, I was led to this:
http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/squeeze/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/mini.iso
However, I wonder why I'd have to use a 16 MB iso image for a usb
stick, rather than a regular install image. I imagine installing
from this above minimal image would be difficult.
I also found in the documentation (2.4 Installation Media) an entry for
USB sticks (2.4.3. USB Memory Stick) which seems to assume that systems
with only USB sticks (and not dvds or cdroms) must be tiny, which given
laptops nowadays is not the case. There also was an entry in 2.4.1.
CD-ROM/DVD-ROM that states "USB CD-ROM drives are also supported, as
are FireWire devices that are supported by the ohci1394 and sbp2
drivers." So, I don't know if the regular iso image that was intended
for dvds or cdroms (IE, the netinst image) can be used with a
usb-stick or not (these images could fit on a usb-stick, but if it
could be used here, then one would expect the instructions to simply
say use this cd-rom image with your usb-stick -- however, this isn't the
case, as the instructions seem to point to the really small image that
I listed above instead, which I imagine would make for a complicated
install). The actual answer may simply be that to avoid complications,
one needs to get an external cdrom drive for systems that don't come
equipped with a cdrom to install via a usb-stick. Why usb-sticks would
be different, I'm not sure. Also, I may be wrong. Anyway, my
uncertainty in stating these things does reflect the confusing layout
of instructions on installing via usb. But, contrary to some of the
other posts on this topic, the regular netinst images do seem
distinctly to be for cdrom/dvd, rather than usb-stick (see
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/debian-installer/).
Anyway, seems confusing to me, too. Given that some usb-sticks can
store even more material than a dvd, and given that usb-sticks are
commonly the only removable drives on a lot of computer devices today
(IE, laptops), why the links for installing Debian group usb-sticks as
"other images (netboot, usb stick, floppy, etc)", rather than having a
specific entry for it as they do for cdrom, dvd, and even blu-ray, is a
mystery.
So, can the netinst-cdrom image be used with a usb-stick? And if so,
why the different listing for usb-sticks? And if not, why not?
Mark
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