Boot Ubuntu based GNU/LINUX directly from ISO

10:45 PM , , , 0 Comments


There is a great possibility that you want to try out the newly downloaded GNU/LINUX distribution, but unfortunately you are running out of pen drives or DVDs. This post shows you how to boot directly from an ISO


Note : This method requires an existing LINUX Operating System. (For Windows, there is a software called EasyBCD which provides us the advantage to boot from ISO , but it doesn't work with LINUX ISO, atleast as far as I have tried ) We take advantage of the GRUB 2's capability to boot from the ISO to use this method. Let us see how this is done :

Disk Utility - sda5
  1. Open Disk Utility
  2. Make a note of the device name and the volume id. Here in my case it is sda and 5. Let us write it in the form of (hdx,y). 'a' in sda means x=0, sd'b' means x=1 and so on. y=3. So for me it will be (hd0,5)
  3. Make a note of the path of the bootable ISO file.
  4. Open Terminal and type the following :
    5. gksu gedit /etc/grub.d/40_custom
  5. Now add the following lines to the file :
    6. menuentry "Try LINUX" {
set isofile="<path_to_iso_file>/<filename>.iso"
loopback loop (hd0,5)$isofile    (Replace 0 and y with the values as calculated above)
(For 64 bit systems : ) linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz.efi boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile noprompt noeject
(For 32 bit systems : ) linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile noprompt noeject
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}
  6. Save and close the file.
  7. Now run the following :
    8. sudo update-grub
(or)
su root
update-grub
  8. Then restart the system and boot into the "Try LINUX" entry you just created. This will boot the system directly from the ISO. After the system has booted, open the terminal and enter the following : ( important )
    9. sudo umount -l -r -f /isodevice

Now you can install the distribution and continue with the  installation process.

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A LINUX enthusiast and tech passionate guy. Love to watch Anime and play cricket. Got extra bit of care in myself, guess that's what people call selfishness :-P Google+