Booting Fedora-12 from hard disk, again, again

[Rick Stevens]

On 12/22/2009 09:27 AM, jackson byers wrote:
> Rick Stevens responded:
>> I think I tuned in late here, but I'm not clear what you're trying to
>> do.  If I'm reading this correctly:
>
>>         1. You're running Fedora from hard disk
>>         2. You're then loopback mounting an ISO image of F12
>>         3. You're trying to install from that loopback mount
>
>> You can't install a new Fedora on top of an already running Fedora to my
>> knowledge.  The install from DVD or LiveCD are special instances and
>> Fedora is not running off the hard drive in those cases--it's running
>> in a RAM disk.
>
>> If you're trying to install via a network install (NFS or HTTP), then
>> the ISO image itself is what you point at, not a loopback mount of it.
>> The installer wants to see the ISO image itself, not the files in it.
>
> Rick,
> My interpretation of what the OP is trying to do is different than yours:
> He is trying to do a
> "hard disk" install of f12, operating from his current fedora(f11?).
> This "hard disk" install requires having an available partition
> completely separate from his current fedora.
> There is no notion, afaik, of
> "install a new Fedora on top of an already running Fedora"
> as you put it, whatever you might mean by "on top of".

That's what I was trying to get at.  He has to use a bootable image
(LiveCD, thumbdrive, something) that brings up Anaconda.  What I was
trying to get at was that one can't update F11 while still running F11.
The system being upgraded must be "quiescent".

> This "hard disk" install does point to the f12 iso,
> but it also requires extracting the vmlinuz, initrd.img, and install.img
> from the iso, which i think requires doing the loopback mount.
> The install.img is placed in a "images" directory.

To build the bootable media, yes, I concur.  You need to extract the
appropriate items and to do that you have to either mount a CD/DVD or
loopback mount an ISO image to get at them.

> There are strict requirements on where that images dir is to be placed;
> I am not sure, but i think the OP did this part correctly.
> Where he might be going wrong is how he interacts with Anaconda,
> as I tried to explain in  my earlier reply

There's no actual restriction on just where the ISO image itself is, so
long as you can feed the full path to Anaconda by specifying the device
and directory on that device (see 
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/f12/en-US/html/s1-begininstall-hd-x86.html 
for details).

> He is not trying to do a network install, afaict.

I wasn't sure if he was or not.  As I said, I "tuned in late".
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