[Fedora-livecd-list] Re: boot livecd iso from a hard disk partition

[Marc Herbert]

don fong a écrit :
> question: how can i boot the livecd distro from a
> hard disk partition, hopefully with the persistent
> option?

I assume you absolutely want to boot a "real" machine. This is too bad
because the easiest way from far to boot a ISO image is to use a
virtual machine using VirtualBox, qemu, etc.


> i have found a lot of pages
> describing how to do this with a USB stick,

Could you please post here the "best" URL you found?


> buti have not been able to find clear instructions on
> how to do the equivalent thing with a regular
> disk partition.

> i have the fedora livecd iso image file on my disk.
> i can mount it under linux.  is there a way to
> boot the iso file directly, without wasting a CD?
> 
> or to make another disk partition boot the livecd distro?

Here is how I usually do this.  This works with any (Linux) ISO image,
not just Fedora.  This assumes you already have a GRUB bootloader on
the target disk. If you do not, please get one. Please note that you
do not need Linux to use GRUB:
http://grub4dos.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Grub4dos_tutorial

If you have a different bootloader than GRUB this should work "almost"
the same.


1. Extract all the ISO image content to the root of
somediskpartition. That is, just loopback-mount the image and copy all the
content.

2. "Convert" some cherry-picked content of "isolinux/isolinux.cfg" to
your GRUB configuration (in /boot/grub/menu.lst).

That's all.


"Converting" from the isolinux bootloader to GRUB is not as difficult
as it may sound. It is basically just the matter of copy/pasting the
few relevant lines and fixing the "root" parameters. For instance this
works4me:

  title fake Fedora 10 ISO
  root (hd1,4)
  kernel /isolinux/vmlinuz0 ro liveimg root=LABEL=somediskpartition
  initrd /isolinux/initrd0.img


As long as there are not filename clashes and enough free space you
can re-use any existing partition; you do not even need to reset it
and you can keep using it as before.

If you are not already familiar with GRUB you will need to spend some
time understanding its logic. I think such a time is never wasted and
always pays back.

Cheers,

Marc